BRISTOL, Tenn. — Keith McGee avoided a lot of flips, crashes and mayhem to take the checkered flag and win the thrilling Danger Ranger on Dirt Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Event host and YouTube sensation Cleetus McFarland presented the trophy and a brand-new bass boat to the former NASCAR Truck Series racer McGee in Bristol Motor Speedway’s victory lane for claiming the hard-earned victory.
Earlier in the evening McFarland congratulated Iowa native Brad Chandler for winning the Midwest Compacts feature race.
“Man that was so much fun,” said Alaska native McGee, who now lives is Mooresville, N.C. “This is now the most fun I’ve ever had in a race car. I told Derek Bieri (team owner of Vice Grip Garage) this afternoon that we were going to win a boat tonight, and we did it.”
McGee said his strategy for the race was to hang back and let any and all crashes develop in front of him.
“We were going to play it safe and stay in back and avoid the wrecks,” McGee said. “But then I knew I needed to get to the front. I felt like I drove through a lot of crashes.”
With 15 laps to go there were 19 trucks still in the race of the 30 that took the green flag. For awhile it looked like Kameron McConchie was going to win, but McGee kept charging. He eventually overtook McConchie with one lap to go.
The carnage that took place in the Danger Ranger was crazy even for Bristol standards.
A spectacular four-truck pileup on the opening lap of the race set the tone right from the start. Kyle English’s green and yellow No. 33 went out of control and made an abrupt turn on the backstretch into oncoming traffic and was slammed by several trucks, including the No. 69x of Flan Bental. A trio of trucks were turned on their sides and had to exit the race with excessive damage.
Tyler Hewett’s truck then overturned between turns three and four on the second lap to bring out the second caution.
With 41 laps to go, there was another flipped truck as the No. 78 of Kevin Smith rolled. Meanwhile, McFarland’s truck had to pull to the side of the track as it started smoking heavily from underneath the hood. His lost engine spewed oil all over the track and several trucks lost traction and were slipping and sliding behind him.
“My motor blew out of my Ranger, but are you not entertained?” McFarland asked the large crowd gathered at BMS. “This was not meant to be this entertaining, and three rollovers was not supposed to happen this early. We have a lot of racing left. Hopefully we won’t have too many more crashes. It’s entertaining as hell, that’s all I can say.”
The final big rollover during the race came along the frontstretch as Ronnie Lester’s truck got loose out of turn four and did three barrell rolls, eventually landing onto the wall right at the start/finish line.
Jeffrey Bloch finished third and was followed by Evann Renslow and Nate Prater in the top five of the Danger Ranger on Dirt.
In the Midwest Compacts All-Star race, Chandler used a last-lap charge and passed race long leader Aaron Tatman in turn four, to take the victory.
Tatman led 29 laps of the race and was putting on a clinic in his No. 9 compact before the hard-charging Chandler powered through and edged him out by a half-a-car length as the checkered flag waved.
“I was ready to do a little rubbing if I had to with it all on the line,” Chandler told McFarland during his victory lane interview. “This means a lot to me, it’s probably one of the last races I will run. I’ve run here three or four times on concrete and dirt, so it feels good to finally get a win here.”