Marion, IL. – Dereck King of Vienna, Illinois used lap traffic to his advantage ousting Nathan Benson and Aaron Andruskevitch in the 25 lap POWRi Speedway Motors 600cc Outlaw Micro Series feature event at the 1/8 mile high-banked Southern Illinois Raceway.
At the drop of the green flag, pole-sitter Aaron Andruskevitch of Riverton, Illinois would jump into the early lead over Matt Ponder of Festus, Missouri. As Andruskevitch’s Suzuki-powered Stallard Chassis took off in a blistering pace, Nathan Benson of Concordia, Missouri maneuvered his Suzuki-powered Pace Chassis into the second position over Ponder. With Ponder behind him, Benson set his sights on Andruskevitch, working to cut his lead.
While Benson slowly chipped away at Andruskevitch’s lead, the yellow was brought out by Chris Elliott. Elliott, running in the 10th position entered turn three the rear axle snapping, sent Elliott towards the outside retaining wall off turn four, his machine coming to a stop just shy of the fence. He would be done for the remainder of the event. With seven laps down and the field bunched back up, Benson would start to size up Andruskevitch when the field resumed green flag racing. On lap 10, Zac Taylor of Washington, Indiana would bring out the second caution of the evening after getting caught up on the infield berm and coming to a stop.
When green flag racing resumed, Benson picked up where he left off and began working over Andruskevitch for the lead. As the duo began sliding each other for the lead, Dereck King of Vienna, Illinois overtook Jeremy Camp of Blue Mound, Illinois for the third position. With the leaders coming up on lap traffic, Dereck King in the Josh Kilgore-owned, Honda-powered Boss Chassis reeled in the battling duo, bringing the fans to their feet.
As soon as Andruskevitch got around the first lap car, Benson would make a move sliding by both Andruskevitch and the lap car. With neither driver realizing how close King was, as quickly as both drivers came up on the next lap car, King would fly by into the lead using the lap car to pick off both Benson and Andruskevitch. Following King to the line would be Benson in second and Andruskevitch in third. Coming in fourth was Joe B. Miller and rounding out the top five was Jeremy Camp.
“This car is so awesome,” said a victorious Dereck King. “Josh made all the right calls. To win right here at home is pretty awesome. I got lucky and got him there in lap traffic. I’m glad we were there at the end, starting ninth and ending up where we did. Man, I love this place.”
“Hats off to Dereck King, he was fast,” stated second place finisher Nathan Benson. “We started sixth; he started ninth, so he had to be rolling. I wish we could have made the slide job stick and got out front, maybe we could have checked out. This is an awesome race track. This place has bit me at some of the biggest races with blown engines and crashes that I couldn’t avoid and it’s good to finish a close race like that. Thanks to the fans who stuck it out being cold. This is an awesome race track.”
“We normally never run good down here,” stated third place finisher Aaron Andruskevitch. “Hats off to Dereck, this is his home track. Anytime we come down here and run with Dereck, it’s kind of like when Dereck comes up and runs Jacksonville, my home track. It’s good to do that. Being able to run wheel to wheel with Nathan like that, slide jobs back and forth and never touch a wheel. The fans saw one good race tonight.”
POWRi Speedway Motors 600cc Outlaw Micro Series Feature Results (25 laps): 1 – Dereck King 2. 2B – Nathan Benson 3. 21 – Aaron Andruskevitch 4. 51B – Joe B. Miller 5. 23 – Jeremy Camp 6. 00 – Matt Ponder 7. 2P – Jake Palmisano 8. 77W – Joey Wirth 9. 79J – Jacob Patton 10. 3B – Shelby Bosie 11. 9K – Kyle Schuett 12. 16B – Dakota Busche 13. 2C – Chris Cobin 14. 14P – Broc Pemberton 15. 44T – Zac Taylor 16. 20 – Tayler Hungate 17. 39 – Austin Stewart 18. 14 – Kurt Westerfield 19. 51 – Andy Bishop 20. 99 – Alec Long 21. 52 – Jason Harms 22. 65E – Chad Elliott
For more information, visit www.powri.com
Contact:
Derek Schuett
POWRi Media
Derek.schuett@gmail.com