Lincoln, IL – After many attempts in recent years, Riley Goodno can finally say that he is
a feature winner with the Morrow Brothers Ford MOWA Sprint Car Series. Goodno took
the lead from Joey Moughan on lap 15 of the 25-lap affair at Lincoln Speedway on
Friday night.
The Knoxville, Iowa driver started outside pole in the A-Main after winning one of four
heat races earlier in the program and drawing a “2” in the night’s redraw. 36 cars made
their way to Lincoln Speedway for the “Night Before the Mile”, marking the series
third-highest car count in 19 visits (41 in 2014, 39 in 2013).
Joey Moughan jumped to the lead of the A-Main with Goodno in tow. Moughan’s #5H
machine was able to maneuver around the ¼-mile oval in all grooves. At the front of the
field, Moughan had to plan his way through lapped traffic that was met by lap eight.
Goodno slowly reeled in the leader and pulled alongside by lap 12. Behind the top two,
Sterling Cling, Joel Myers Jr and Joe B. Miller started to quickly pick off cars on their
way to the front of the field.
A caution flew over the field at lap 16 for Korey Weyant atop turn four just after Goodno
had taken the top spot. Returning to green, Goodno’s pace over the field continued as
he set his sights on a checkered flag. Once more the field slowed when Chris Urish
spun atop turn four only a few laps later. Urish’s night ended early after damage with the
turn four wall forced the #77U machine to require the use of a tow truck back to his pit.
Goodno led the field back to green on the ensuing restart and started to click the laps
away. Tyler Duff made contact with the turn two wall resulting in a red-flag period, which
turned out to be the first of two during the 25-lap affair. Duff escaped with no injury.
Working lap 22, Joey Moughan had slipped back to fourth where he was alongside
Sterling Cling and made contact resulting in a multi-car pileup in turn one with Will
Armitage and Shelby Bosie. Boise rode the highline into turn one trying to avoid the
incident but found the wall and quickly put his #3B on its side before landing on all four
wheels again.
After cleaning the accident scene, the field was set for a three lap shootout. Goodno
quickly got into defensive mode, knowing that there were two hard charging drivers
behind him in Joel Myers and Jake Blackhurst. Holding back a charge, Goodno went on
to cross under the checkers for his first MOWA Sprint Car Series win over Joel Myers,
who charged from his 10th starting spot, Jake Blackhurst, Sterling Cling and Darin
Naida. Behind the top five, Joe B. Miller grabbed sixth from his 22nd starting spot,
earning the race’s hard charger.
Reed Whitney, Riley Goodno, Shelby Bosie and Jake Blackhurst grabbed heat race
victories.
The MOWA Sprints return to action next Saturday, August 24 at Macon Speedway, in
Macon, Illinois.
Feature finish:
A Feature 1 (25 Laps): 1. 22-Riley Goodno[2]; 2. 46JR-Joel Myers Jr[10]; 3. 96-Jake
Blackhurst[4]; 4. 34-Sterling Cling[11]; 5. 7N-Darin Naida[9]; 6. 51B-Joe B Miller[22]; 7.
3N-Jake Neuman[13]; 8. 42-Preston Perlmutter[7]; 9. 87-Reed Whitney[5]; 10.
14N-Kevin Newton[17]; 11. 6R-Ryan Bunton[21]; 12. 7A-Will Armitage[20]; 13.
52F-Logan Faucon[18]; 14. 28-Korbin Keith[19]; 15. B8-John Barnard[23]; 16.
10S-Jeremy Standridge[24]; 17. 8S-Steve Short[15]; 18. (DNF) 5H-Joey Moughan[1];
19. (DNF) 3B-Shelby Bosie[6]; 20. (DNF) 9-Tyler Duff[8]; 21. (DNF) 77U-Chris Urish[16];
22. (DNF) 47-Korey Weyant[14]; 23. (DNF) 5-Zackary Sokol[12]; 24. (DNF) 73-Scotty
Thiel[3]