Jim Chisholm (24) finished a weekend sweep, repelling a late-race challenge from Kyle Strickler (8) to win win Saturday’s feature at the 15th annual USMTS Slick Mist Show-Me Shootout Presented by Foley Equipment at Lucas Oil Speedway. (GS Stanek Racing Photography)
Jim Chisholm never had particularly been a fan of Lucas Oil Speedway’s racing surface in past visits to the Diamond of Dirt Tracks. His opinion definitely has changed after this weekend’s visit.
Chisholm, of Osage, Iowa, doubled up his fun Saturday night at the 15th annual Slick Mist USMTS Show-Me Shootout Presented by Foley Equipment. Twenty-four hours after winning a thriller on Night One, Chisholm repeated and took home another $5,000 first prize to complete the sweep.
Chisholm, 21, took the lead on lap two and maintained it the rest of the 50-lapper. He held off a hard-charging Jake Timm by .743 seconds in the United States Modified Touring Series finale. Zack Vanderbeek was third and Kyle Strickler finished fourth. Dan Ebert rounded out the top five.
Other winners on the program were JC Morton (Clear Creek Golf Cars USRA B-Mods), Justin Wells (Hermitage Lumber POWRi Late Models) and Johnny Fennewald (O’Reilly Auto Parts USRA Stock Cars).
Chisholm smiled in victory lane about the special weekend, where he found the right combo to get around the south-central Missouri oval.
“This is gonna stick with me for a really, really long time,” Chisholm said, adding, “again, Lucas Oil gave us a really good race track. I didn’t win the race on the line I started. To me, that’s huge because it keeps us drivers working really hard on where we have to run.
“I have to thank all the people for coming out to this event. You have one of the best facilities around and I love coming here, now.”
Chisholm took the lead away from fellow front-row starter Vanderbeek on lap two with Trevor Hughes settling into third. Chisholm needed only five laps to open a 1.9-second lead and he was catching lapped traffic by lap 10.
The lead swelled to 3.7 seconds by lap 12 and Chisholm was nearly a straightaway ahead of Vanderbeek just a few laps later. With the race remaining green, Chisholm had a 4.8-second command at the halfway mark on lap 25 as it was becoming a complete runaway.
But a lap-31 caution gave life to the rest of the field as Chisholm’s 5.4-second gap was wiped out when Dayton Pursley spun in turn one after A.J. Hoff’s car went up in smoke directly in front of him.
That left Strickler, Vanderbeek and Trevor Hughes and Jason Hughes behind Chisholm for the restart, with 19 to go.
“I didn’t really know how many laps were left when that caution came out,” Chisholm said. “I thought there was only like five or 10. These races are always a lot longer when you’re leading.”
Strickler pulled alongside Chisholm on the inside the two laps after the restart, but was unable to get by. Chisholm was able to push his lead back to five car lengths on lap 36, with Strickler and Vanderbeek battling it out for second.
Strickler, of Mooresville, N.C., moved to the high line in turns three and four and remained low in turns one and two, but Chisholm held firm in the high groove. The top three were separated by only three car lengths by lap 43 and Vanderbeek edged into second a lap later with 15th-starting Jake Timm moving by Strickler into third.
Timm, of Winona, Minn., came to the white flag in second, but wasn’t close enough to make a run at Chisholm as the 21-year-old Iowan held on to win by about six car lengths.
“I saw Jake and Zack at the end there and I think they were a little bit better than me the last few laps,” Chisholm said. “I just had to come down where they were really good.
“I had to use up a lot, too early, running the cushion getting through lapped cars. I had to push it a little harder than I expected.”
Timm, who led the weekend in cars passed, picked up 13 spots from the start after using a provisional to rally from 23rd to fourth on Friday. He fell behind Chisholm in the USMTS championship chase by a handful of points.
“It would definitely have helped to start toward the front,” Timm said. “Toward the end, we started to get really good. If I could have started closer to the front, maybe we’d have had a shot to win. Or 10 more laps, I don’t know.
“Either way, I can’t complain. We had to battle some adversity this weekend.”
Another Late Model win for Wells: Justin Wells led from start-to-finish in a caution-free Hermitate Lumber POWRi Late Model feature, his 11th trip to victory lane in 13 attepts this season at Lucas Oil Speedway.
In a familiar storyline, Wells took the lead at the start and built a sizable margin over Fennewald by lap 10. The lead remained consistent in the two-second range as Wells worked his way through lapped traffic and, without a caution, he easily added to his win total.
Wells wound up 3.2 seconds ahead of Fennewald – the only driver to beat him this season at Lucas Oil Speedway – at the checkers. Tucker Cox finished third with Alan Westling and Jim Greenway rounding out the top five.
“This track was spot-on, the car was spot-on, the crew was spot-on and the driver did a pretty good job,” Wells said in victory lane.
Morton earns USRA B-Mods feature win: JC Morton took the lead on lap seven after advancing from his seventh-starting position and rolled to the victory in Clear Creek Golf Cars USRA B-Mod feature.
Morton, of Springfield, beat Trevor Drake by nearly three seconds to claim his second feature win of the season at Lucas Oil Speedway.
As the first feature after track work during intermission, Morton said the track came to him after a few laps and he was able to run strong in his Bloodline Race Car.
“It’s really good,” Morton said of the car. “We just have to keep this momentum going. We’ve been trying some stuff, keep testing some different things. We back back to where we were last year at the (USRA) Nationals and it was pretty good.”
Morton, the Big Adventure RV Weekly Championship Series division points leader, shot to the lead out of turn four on lap seven with an outside pass of Rex Harris. He had a half-second lead over Harris on lap nine when the first caution flew.
The restart saw Morton roll to a one-second advantage over Trevor Drake before a lap-10 caution due to a six-car pileup against slowed the race’s rhythm. Morton quickly regained command, moving to the high groove for a two-second lead by lap 15.
Morton poured it on from there as the race remained caution-free, beating Drake by 2.7 seconds at the finish. Bobby Williams wound up third with J.T. Carroll fourth and Harris coming home fifth.
Fennewald takes a thriller in USRA Stock Cars: The last race of the night had the closest finish as Johnny Fennewald – after losing a race-long lead on lap 18 – rallied on the final circuit to beat Jaylen Wettengel in a side-by-side finish.
Fennewald started on the pole and set the pace at the start, with Wettengel moving from fourth to second by lap three. Wettengel ran about two car lengths behind the leader over the next 10 laps before drawing onto his back bumper.
With a good battle shaping up for the lead, the first caution flew on lap 13. After the caution, Wettengel pulled alongside and finally took the lead coming out of turn four on lap 18.
But Fennewald wasn’t done. He got a big rush of momentum going into the final turn and used the high side to beat Wettengel by a half-car-length at the finish line. The official margin was .082 seconds.
Of the last lap, Fennewald said, “I was being way too conservative on the bottom. I had a better car than I was putting on. I just moved up a little bit and started running the hell out of it.”
Points leader William Garner was third, Waylon Dimmitt fourth and James Ellis fifth.
LUCAS OIL SPEEDWAY UNOFFICIAL RESULTS (Aug. 3, 2024)
15th annual Slick Mist Show-Me Shootout Presented by Foley Equipment
USMTS Modifieds
A Feature – 1. 24C-Jim Chisholm[2]; 2. 49-Jake Timm[15]; 3. 33Z-Zack VanderBeek[1]; 4. 8-Kyle Strickler[6]; 5. 60-Dan Ebert[16]; 6. 712-Trevor Hughes[4]; 7. 75-Terry Phillips[13]; 8. 12-Jason Hughes[12]; 9. 21K-Kyle Brown[11]; 10. 20-Rodney Sanders[22]; 11. 01-Jacob Hobscheidt[8]; 12. 02-Tanner Mullens[14]; 13. 4W-Tyler Wolff[7]; 14. 99L-Steve Lavasseur[17]; 15. 10C-Cayden Carter[23]; 16. 98A-Kenton Allen[3]; 17. 65-Tyler Davis[18]; 18. 15W-Alex Williamson[10]; 19. 38C-Jason Pursley[25]; 20. 10-Dayton Pursley[9]; 21. 7G-Gabe Hodges[20]; 22. 19SB-Lance Mari[21]; 23. 55H-AJ Hoff[19]; 24. 0-Jake O’Neil[5]; 25. 26S-Steven Glenn[24]
B Feature 1 – 1. 75-Terry Phillips[5]; 2. 49-Jake Timm[6]; 3. 99L-Steve Lavasseur[1]; 4. 55H-AJ Hoff[4]; 5. 19SB-Lance Mari[10]; 6. 10C-Cayden Carter[3]; 7. 08-Dakota Sproul[2]; 8. 16-Austin Siebert[9]; 9. 98-Jeff Cutshaw[7]; 10. 3J-Lewis Jackson[8]; 11. 10B-Brandon Givens[12]; 12. 7D-Davis Givens[11]; 13. 21-Greg Scheffler[14]; 14. 26S-Steven Glenn[13]
B Feature 2 – 1. 02-Tanner Mullens[3]; 2. 60-Dan Ebert[5]; 3. 65-Tyler Davis[7]; 4. 7G-Gabe Hodges[2]; 5. 20-Rodney Sanders[9]; 6. 38C-Jason Pursley[4]; 7. 68-Dean Wille[8]; 8. 66-Tyler Worley[1]; 9. 747-Colton Eck[14]; 10. 18L-Chad Lyle[6]; 11. 11N-Gene Nicholas[10]; 12. 26-Brad Johnson[13]; 13. 96-Logan Johnson[11]; 14. 58X-Gary Christian[12]
Heat 1 – 1. 0-Jake O’Neil[1]; 2. 98A-Kenton Allen[6]; 3. 66-Tyler Worley[2]; 4. 15W-Alex Williamson[8]; 5. 12-Jason Hughes[10]; 6. 60-Dan Ebert[7]; 7. 16-Austin Siebert[3]; 8. 19SB-Lance Mari[5]; 9. 96-Logan Johnson[9]; 10. 747-Colton Eck[4]
Heat 2 – 1. 4W-Tyler Wolff[1]; 2. 01-Jacob Hobscheidt[5]; 3. 08-Dakota Sproul[2]; 4. 10C-Cayden Carter[4]; 5. 75-Terry Phillips[3]; 6. 18L-Chad Lyle[6]; 7. 65-Tyler Davis[9]; 8. 20-Rodney Sanders[8]; 9. 11N-Gene Nicholas[10]; 10. 21-Greg Scheffler[7]
Heat 3 – 1. 8-Kyle Strickler[2]; 2. 24C-Jim Chisholm[3]; 3. 21K-Kyle Brown[4]; 4. 55H-AJ Hoff[1]; 5. 02-Tanner Mullens[7]; 6. 98-Jeff Cutshaw[6]; 7. 49-Jake Timm[10]; 8. 68-Dean Wille[9]; 9. 10B-Brandon Givens[5]; 10. 26S-Steven Glenn[8]
Heat 4 – 1. 33Z-Zack VanderBeek[1]; 2. 10-Dayton Pursley[2]; 3. 712-Trevor Hughes[6]; 4. 7G-Gabe Hodges[5]; 5. 99L-Steve Lavasseur[10]; 6. 38C-Jason Pursley[9]; 7. 3J-Lewis Jackson[7]; 8. 7D-Davis Givens[4]; 9. 58X-Gary Christian[3]; 10. 26-Brad Johnson[8]
Clear Creek Golf Cars USRA B-Mods
A Feature – 1. 18-JC Morton[7]; 2. 7L-Trevor Drake[3]; 3. 1B-Bobby Williams[6]; 4. 94C-JT Carroll[9]; 5. 30-Rex Harris[1]; 6. 56-Hoyt Miller[12]; 7. 11L-Logan Smith[10]; 8. 55-Colson Kirk[15]; 9. 5S-Reece Solander[14]; 10. 61-Sturgis Streeter[5]; 11. 03J-Chase Jones[19]; 12. 15-Cayden Stacye[21]; 13. 19-Tanner Kade[26]; 14. 34-Mark Schafman[17]; 15. 99T-Eric Turner[24]; 16. 91J-Jaylen Wettengel[18]; 17. 8X-Scott Chism[11]; 18. C3-Chad Staus[13]; 19. 9M-Matthew Manes[4]; 20. Z28-Randy Zimmerman[8]; 21. 42J-Donnie Jackson[16]; 22. (DNF) 23Y-Ethan Young[22]; 23. (DNF) 22H-Tim Hoselton[25]; 24. (DNF) F1-Mitchell Franklin[2]; 25. (DNF) 03-TC Hambrick[23]; 26. (DNF) 5-Robert White[20]
Heat 1 – 1. 30-Rex Harris[2]; 2. 61-Sturgis Streeter[3]; 3. Z28-Randy Zimmerman[1]; 4. 18-JC Morton[7]; 5. 55-Colson Kirk[6]; 6. 34-Mark Schafman[8]; 7. 03J-Chase Jones[4]; 8. 15-Cayden Stacye[9]; 9. (DNF) 99T-Eric Turner[5]
Heat 2 – 1. 7L-Trevor Drake[1]; 2. 1B-Bobby Williams[2]; 3. 94C-JT Carroll[3]; 4. 8X-Scott Chism[5]; 5. 5S-Reece Solander[7]; 6. 42J-Donnie Jackson[9]; 7. 5-Robert White[4]; 8. (DNS) 22H-Tim Hoselton; 9. (DQ) 19-Tanner Kade[6]
Heat 3 – 1. F1-Mitchell Franklin[2]; 2. 9M-Matthew Manes[4]; 3. 11L-Logan Smith[3]; 4. 56-Hoyt Miller[5]; 5. C3-Chad Staus[8]; 6. 91J-Jaylen Wettengel[7]; 7. (DNF) 23Y-Ethan Young[1]; 8. (DNF) 03-TC Hambrick[6]
Hermitage Lumber POWRi Late Models
A Feature – 1. 98-Justin Wells[3]; 2. 21-Johnny Fennewald[1]; 3. 1T-Tucker Cox[2]; 4. 20-Alan Westling[5]; 5. 28-Jim Greenway[8]; 6. 5-Tommy Cordray[4]; 7. 72-JC Morton[7]; 8. 1A-Bryon Allison[6]; 9. X15-Bobby Ruff II[12]; 10. 18-Shawn Eggeman[10]; 11. 90-Joe Walkenhorst[9]; 12. 99-Larry Jones[11]; 13. 21P-Darren Phillips[13]
Heat 1 – 1. 21-Johnny Fennewald[4]; 2. 5-Tommy Cordray[1]; 3. 72-JC Morton[3]; 4. 20-Alan Westling[7]; 5. 18-Shawn Eggeman[5]; 6. 99-Larry Jones[2]; 7. X15-Bobby Ruff II[6]
Heat 2 – 1. 98-Justin Wells[1]; 2. 1T-Tucker Cox[5]; 3. 1A-Bryon Allison[2]; 4. 28-Jim Greenway[6]; 5. 90-Joe Walkenhorst[3]; 6. (DNF) 21P-Darren Phillips[4]
O’Reilly Auto Parts USRA Stock Cars
A Feature – 1. 21-Johnny Fennewald[1]; 2. 91J-Jaylen Wettengel[4]; 3. 7-William Garner[5]; 4. 11-Waylon Dimmitt[8]; 5. 83-James Ellis[11]; 6. 41-Bryan White[13]; 7. 0F-Mason Beck[2]; 8. 12-Christopher Sawyer[7]; 9. 27-Jeff Tennant[6]; 10. 74-Rodney Schweizer[14]; 11. 8M-James McMillin[12]; 12. 111-Butch Bailey[9]; 13. 05G-Grayson McKiney[15]; 14. 24-Blayne McMillin[10]; 15. (DNF) 25-Jeremy Vaughn[3]
Heat 1 – 1. 0F-Mason Beck[1]; 2. 91J-Jaylen Wettengel[2]; 3. 7-William Garner[5]; 4. 111-Butch Bailey[3]; 5. 11-Waylon Dimmitt[8]; 6. 8M-James McMillin[6]; 7. 74-Rodney Schweizer[7]; 8. 05G-Grayson McKiney[4]
Heat 2 – 1. 21-Johnny Fennewald[5]; 2. 25-Jeremy Vaughn[1]; 3. 27-Jeff Tennant[4]; 4. 12-Christopher Sawyer[7]; 5. 24-Blayne McMillin[6]; 6. 83-James Ellis[2]; 7. 41-Bryan White[3]
Next up: Lucas Oil Speedway takes next weekend off before a unique night of action on Aug. 17. The POWRi Summer Thunder will feature the POWRi 410 Sprints along with the POWRi 305 Sprints. Meanwhile, the inaugural Diamond Full Fender Challenge will see the POWRi Super Stocks and USRA Stock Cars.
Features in the Super Stocks and Stock Cars will pay $1,500-to-win and with the top 12 from each of those features going into the $1,500-to-win and $150 to start the Full Fender Challenge. Starting positions in that feature will be determined by a drawing.
Pit gates will open at 4 p.m., with grandstands at 4:30, hot laps at 6:30 and racing at 7:05.
For ticket or camping information on any Lucas Oil Speedway event, contact Admissions Director Nichole McMillan at (417) 295-6043 or via email at [email protected].
For information about Lucas Oil Speedway, including schedules, point standings and other news, please visit LucasOilSpeedway.com.