DODGE CITY, Kan. – Less than a month ago, Jordan Knight broke into victory lane for the first time.
In Sunday’s final portion of the Labor Day Weekend Spectacular at Dodge City Raceway Park, Knight nabbed his second Hambelton Racing DCRP Sprint Car win by wiring the field in the 15-lapper.
Other Sunday night winners that put the finishing touches on a Labor Day Weekend double were Tracy Link in IMCA Modifieds, Brian May in IMCA Sport Modifieds, Gregg Schell in IMCA Stock Cars and Trevor Schmidt in IMCA Hobby Stocks.
Schmidt ranked as the only driver to sweep his divisions features for the weekend.
After setting a fast time of 14.406 seconds in qualifying and then winning his heat race to earn the pole position for the 15-lap feature, Knight gunned into the lead at the drop of the green flag and raced away from the field for a wire-to-wire score aboard the Scott Knight Racing Engines-powered Superior Fence/J-A-G No. 10 Triple-X chassis.
Knight crossed the stripe ahead of his brother Tyler Knight with Las Cruces’ Richard Wilbee filling out the podium in third.
“We’ve been putting together some good runs lately,” Knight commented in victory lane. “The car count is a little lighter than we would have liked, but I’m not going to complain about a win.”
The 15-lap IMCA Modified feature offered up some drama with Rolla’s Tracy Link matching his son’s Saturday night effort by parking his No. 2L entry in victory lane.
Link raced into the lead from the pole position and had William Nusser and Nick Link at a distance until closing in on a pair of lapped cars past the midway point.
Entering turn one with a handful of laps to go, Link made contact with one of the tail-end cars and looped it. The caution inadvertently flew, but not before Nusser and the younger Link had slipped by.
Restarting third where he would have blended in sans caution, Tracy Link battled his way back to the front as the white flag flew and took the win ahead of Nusser and Nick Link.
“That really motivated me when that happened,” Link explained. “I was afraid I was going to get put all the way to the back, I wouldn’t have been happy about that.”
After three different drivers earned first career DCRP feature wins on Saturday night, Spearville’s Brian May broke the ice as well with his first IMCA Sport Modified win in Sunday night’s 15-lap finale.
Gridding the feature outside the third row, May needed just one round to shoot into second and then took the lead away from pole starter Monty Nordyke on the fifth lap. From that point, May ripped around the topside the rest of the way to post the win ahead of Nordyke and Saturday night winner Kyle Wiens.
“When I went into the first corner and passed all those cars, I knew then I had a car that could win,” May said in victory lane.
The 15-lap Stock Car feature win was awarded to Cheney’s Gregg Schell after the apparent top-two finishers as well as the fourth-place finisher failed to pass post-race technical inspection.
While Angel Munoz and Dusty Witthuhn diced for the lead much of the way, Schell had a front-row seat right on their heels and crossed the stripe third before the rash of DQ’s resulted in the victory with Jesse Smith and Donald Kaup on the podium as well.
Hays racer Trevor Schmidt made it two in a row for the weekend by winning the 15-lap IMCA Hobby Stock feature. But, after leading the entirety of Saturday’s feature, Schmidt battled past Duane Wahrman to post a last-lap win.
While Schmidt led the way to the green flag, Wahrman jumped into the initial lead with Schmidt in tow. Schmidt moved in to challenge at the midway point and the duo spent the vast majority of the final handful of rounds in side-by-side fashion with Schmidt edging into the lead on the final lap to take the win ahead of Wahrman and Dion Priddy.
“I got a good run off the bottom coming to the white flag and got alongside him,” Schmidt summed up. “It was still a little sloppy at the bottom of one and two and I slid up into him a little bit, I didn’t mean to get into him. Then he paid me back in turn four coming to the checkered, so hopefully there’s no hard feelings.”