The Hell Tour’s first visit to Arkansas served up one of the most exciting DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals races of the season Tuesday night at Old No.1 Speedway.
With two laps-to-go, Mike McKinney took the lead from race-long leader Trevor Neville in lapped traffic and led the last two laps for his fourth Hell Tour win of the season. After the race, McKinney said there was so much going on in front of him, he was unsure of how it all went down.
“I don’t really remember all what happened,” McKinney said. “The lap cars were crazy. One about spun out in front of us. I can’t wait to go back and watch the video for sure. I didn’t think we’d win that race. In disbelief, for sure.”
From fifth on the starting grid, McKinney stayed patient in the opening laps, swapping between fifth and fourth place in the first 11 laps before the last caution came on Lap 12. On the restart, McKinney started on the outside and found the banking of the track to his liking and used it to shoot up to second by Lap 13.
“Was able to restart on the outside and went as high as I could,” McKinney said. “Gained a lot of good speed there and was able to get there before anyone else.”
Going into Lap 22, Neville stayed down low going into Turn 1 and McKinney stayed up high, and going down the backstretch the two were side-by-side. Once the two reached Turn 3, McKinney kept his line up high while Neville opted for the middle groove. Coming out of Turn 4, McKinney sealed the pass on Neville but right in front of McKinney were two lap cars.
McKinney caught the two cars at the start/finish line, contacting the rears of both cars but somehow all three kept their cars steady. McKinney swung it high in Turns 1 and 2 to get by the slower cars while staying ahead of Neville.
“You’re just judging your speed versus theirs,” McKinney said of getting by the lap cars. “We race really good in traffic like that and it’s just a matter of decision making and we were able to make all the right ones.”
But the battle between Neville and McKinney was not done yet. On the final lap, Neville edged ahead of McKinney down low in Turns 1 and 2 but McKinney shot by him down the backstretch and stayed in front through Turns 3 and 4, crossing the stripe .379 seconds ahead of Neville when the checkered flag flew.
“It kind of came down to the last lap there,” McKinney said. “I finally got in front of him and was able to pick off one more lap car and finish it out.”
With the victory, McKinney becomes the first driver to win four Summit Modified races this season as he stays in pursuit of his first championship with the series.
UP NEXT
The DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals will continue Week 4 at Benton Speedway on Wednesday, July 3, accompanied by the DIRTcar Summer Nationals Late Models. Tickets will be available at the gate.
If you can’t make it to the track, you can watch all the action live on DIRTVision.
ABBREVIATED RESULTS
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 96M-Mike McKinney[3]; 2. 777-Trevor Neville[1]; 3. 24-Zeke McKenzie[5]; 4. 12L-Lucas Lee[4]; 5. 99-Hunt Gossum[2]; 6. 94-Austin Rettig[21]; 7. 5-Steven Brooks[7]; 8. 36-Kenny Wallace[11]; 9. 1A-Steve Meyer Jr[13]; 10. 23Z-Austin Wayne Self[6]; 11. 54-Zachary Hawk[12]; 12. 14-Dalton Lane[14]; 13. 9D9-Cole Hilton[9]; 14. 88-Shane Mendoza[19]; 15. 99P-Brandon Poppenheimer[18]; 16. 25-Greg Belyea[16]; 17. 29-Colby Richardson[17]; 18. 5K-Dennis Kimbrough[22]; 19. 07-Jack Walker[24]; 20. 34-Tommy Smith[23]; 21. 12-Kaleb Jones[20]; 22. 18-Clay Caldwell[15]; 23. 9-Ken Schrader[10]; 24. 177-Johnny Gustavus[25]; 25. 13-Charlie Mefford[8]