By Billy Rock | October 11, 2024
Wheatland, MO (October 10, 2024) – Ryan Gustin rolled into the I-70 Speedway in Odessa, MO for the first time on Thursday night, and displayed a dominant performance over the Lucas Oil MLRA field to capture his 3rd series win of the season.
Having won two of the last three MLRA events, Gustin led the field to the green flag for the 30-lap main event, alongside of Dillon McCowan. The “Reaper” would jump out front at the drop of the green, and made sure to take advantage of the clean air at the super-fast I-70 and stretched out the advantage in just a matter of laps to two plus seconds.
The night’s first of four cautions slowed the pace on lap eight, when Daniel Hilsabeck slowed on the race track with a shredded right rear tire. Gustin led McCowan and championship leader Chad Simson back to the green, again pulling away until Jon Binning spun to the infield on lap 15 just as Gustin began to work his way through lapped traffic.
Hilsabeck charged his way back through the field after his early race caution and was sitting in 6th, when he jumped the turn four cushion and made heavy contact with the turn three wall. The Earlham, Iowa driver’s night came to an early end but fortunately he was able to walk away.
The nights’ final stoppage occurred with just four laps to go for Steve Stultz who had slowed exiting turn four directly in front of the race leader Gustin. The final restart of the night would go single file, giving Chad Simpson one final shot at taking down his second win of the season. It would be all for not however, as Gustin picked up his 13th career Lucas Oil MLRA win by 2.777 seconds over Simpson. Tony Jackson Jr. would move up five positions, and in doing so earned the Swift Springs Move of the Race. McCowan and Chris Simpson would round out the nights top five.
Following his $7,000 victory Gustin commented on his first ever visit to I-70 in saying, “This place is fun, I have never been here before. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it widened out there toward the end of that race. After the race I peeled to the bottom and I had traction down there too. All-in-all it was a very good night, very fast race car and an awesome place.”
The biggest challenge on the night for Gustin came in the form of the four restarts. “The biggest thing is just not getting over that ledge, and letting them get under you and get a run or what not. Your definitely on the edge of your seat any time you see a yellow flag. You know you have to nail your restart and especially not get slide there, especially when the top is that wide getting in like that. All-in-all this Infinity race car was awesome and our Jay Dickens Engine ran great,” he concluded.
Chad Simpson grabbed a valuable 10 bonus points earlier in the night by grabbing the MyRacePass overall “Fast Time Award”. Combined with his runner-up finish, Simpson now holds a 95-point margin over Tony Jackson Jr. heading into Friday nights finale at Tri-City Speedway.
“It cleaned off pretty good tonight and made it a pretty good race,” commented Simpson. “That top was still pretty much dominate up there and made it pretty fast. I passed all my cars going around the bottom, so there was definitely some grip down there and we could make it work.”
“This place carries so much speed, it’s really really tough, and if you don’t get in the corner just right to where you can get off just right you can lose a ton of ground up and off the corner. You just kind of had to cry that momentum and get rolling and Ryan was pretty dam good tonight, but we did all we could to chase him.”
Jackson used as second consecutive podium run to leap Chris Simpson and take over second by a mere five points. “This was the first time I’ve been here, and I enjoyed it,” noted Jackson. “We had trouble with the motor running earlier in the night, but we worked on it and picked our way up through there.”
“We heard it was fast,” he noted of I-70. “But it slicked off and there was a top and there was a bottom, and that’s all you can ask for,” concluded the two-time MLRA Champion.
The 2024 Lucas Oil MLRA season will conclude on Friday night October 11th, at the Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, IL. The series $20,000 championship battle will be on the line along with a $7,000 to win main event. Saturday nights schedule season finale was cancelled earlier in the week, putting all of the pressure on the championship drivers on “Championship Friday”.
I-70 Speedway Contingencies 10/10/24
Lap Leaders – Ryan Gustin (1 – 30)
Cautions – 4
MyRacePass “Overall Fast Time Award” — Chad Simpson (15.820 sec.)
Outerwears Crew Chief of the Race – Tim Douglas
MD3 “Most Laps Led” – Ryan Gustin (30)
Swift Springs “Move of the Race” – Tony Jackson Jr.
Sunoco Race Fuel “Rookie of the Race” – Aaron Marrant
PEM Racing “4th Place Finisher” – Dillon McCowan
Fluidyne: “5th Place Finisher: – Chris Simpson
Sunoco “Engine Builders Challenge” – Jay Dickens
Midwest Sheet Metal “Points Leader Spoiler Challenge” – Chad Simpson
MD3 Final Finisher: – Jimmy Vanzandt
A Feature KC Cup – 30 Laps | 00:27:00.892
19R-Ryan Gustin[1]; 2. 25-Chad Simpson[5]; 3. 56JR-Tony Jackson Jr[8]; 4. 8-Dillon McCowan[2]; 5. 32-Chris Simpson[3]; 6. 11-Jeff Herzog[6]; 7. 11T-Trevor Gundaker[10]; 8. 11G-Gordy Gundaker[9]; 9. 78S-Steve Stultz[12]; 10. 1XK-Richard Kimberling[15]; 11. (DNF) 22H-Dustin Hodges[13]; 12. (DNF) 1XM-Aaron Marrant[4]; 13. (DNF) 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[7]; 14. (DNF) 65-Jon Binning[11]; 15. (DNS) 67-Jimmy Vanzandt
Billy Rock | Midwest LateModel Racing Association
