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iRacing: McKinney Bros Dominate Knoxville

MCKINNEY

Speed and Luck Run in the Family

by Randy Chenowth

iRACING — July 2, 2108 — The fourth round of the World Of Outlaws Craftsman Late Model Championship Series paid a visit to the Sprint Car Capitol of the World. While being renowned for sprint car racing, the Late Model drivers were really excited about this upcoming race with several saying it could be one of the most exciting races of the season; and it didn’t disappoint.

The night began standard enough with names like Drew Herchko, Alex Bergeron, Howard Weaver, and Austen Semmelmann topping the qualifying charts. The heats were entertaining as the track slowly started to wear in.

The Last Chance Showdown is where fireworks started. With 12 drivers fighting for 4 transfer spots things will always get crazy, but Knoxville stepped up the drama. On Lap 3 the leaders came together and spun in front of the field. That lost them all sorts of track position and promoted Adam Elby, who started the race dead last in 12th and into the race lead. James Edens transferring from third, Garrett Niebruegge transferring from 8th, and Randall Carter transferring from 11th. A huge shock to the likes of Charles Cosper, Joshua Laughton, and Justin Thomas who all started in the top 4.

With the field set and 50 laps on the board it was Drew Herchko who would be the early performer running away from the field in the early stages. Howard Weaver made some good moves as well to hold the second with the likes of Bergeron, Semmellmann, and Leonhardi scrapping for the rest of the top 5.

A caution about 20 laps in, after Weaver and Fields tangled, we0 saw a 5-car pileup that ended a couple of nights. A number of fast names being sent into the depths of the field. The big beneficiary of this reset was the 2 of Dylan Houser, who was able to get up near the front and start fighting with Drew. It seemed to be his best competition all night. They dueled up until 15 to go when a spin brought out a yellow. This time though, on the restart, Herchko and Houser would make contact before ever making it to the S/F line and immediately bring out another caution. Herchko would end up in the fence at the back of the field and Houser would find himself 8th on the restart.

Coming back to green inside 10 to go, Matthew McKinney commanded the field and simply checked out. The fight for second would heat up though between Zach Leonhardi and Mike McKinney. They would throw a couple sliders on each other and trade the position a few times, but Mike would be able to sneak out a slight advantage which allowed the 25 of Tyler Ducharme to keep Leonhardi busy. After 50 laps of racing Matthew McKinney would end up with the victory and his brother Mike would hold onto the second spot, becoming the first family pair to claim the top 2 positions in a World Championship on iRacing.

 

WATCH HIGHLIGHTS

 

FEATURE RESULTS

Fin Pos Name Start Pos Car # Interval Laps Led Fast Time Fast Lap Pts
1 Matthew McKinney 8 9 0 15 18.387 9 70
2 Mike McKinney 15 96 -0.85 0 18.522 14 67
3 Tyler Ducharme 11 25 -1.393 0 18.524 10 64
4 Zach Leonhardi 12 24 -1.987 0 18.43 15 61
5 Dylan R. Houser 6 2 -2.411 0 18.428 24 58
6 Jacob Leverstein 13 777 -2.572 0 18.478 3 55
7 Howard Weaver 3 7 -2.954 0 18.434 5 52
8 Randall Carter 20 37 -3.051 0 18.527 2 49
9 Casey Kirwan 7 14 -3.647 0 18.512 12 46
10 Nick Cooper 14 35 -4.237 0 18.509 9 43
11 James Edens 18 52 -5.08 0 18.546 2 41
12 Austin M Carr 10 1 -5.333 0 18.425 6 39
13 Phillip Diaz 16 94 -5.389 0 18.515 5 37
14 David Heileman 9 21 -5.581 0 18.43 9 35
15 Garrett Niebruegge 19 19 -5.954 0 18.543 15 33
16 Drew Herchko 1 26 -6.815 35 18.393 6 31
17 Alex A Bergeron 2 12 -15.387 0 18.415 6 29
18 Austen Semmelmann 4 18 -1 L 0 18.47 6 27
19 Adam Elby 17 74 -4 L 0 18.599 14 25
20 Jacob Fields 5 7 -34 L 0 18.401 11 23

 

POINT STANDINGS

Position Name Points Wins Top 5 Starts Laps Led Poles
1 Howard Weaver 293 1 3 4 66 1
2 Zach Leonhardi 258 0 3 4 28 0
3 Alex A Bergeron 246 2 2 4 79 1
4 Dylan R. Houser 245 0 2 4 8 0
5 Nick Cooper 219 0 1 4 51 1
6 Matthew McKinney 197 1 2 4 23 0
7 Jacob Leverstein 195 0 0 4 0 0
8 Austen Semmelmann 189 0 1 4 8 0
9 Tyler Ducharme 187 0 2 4 8 0
10 Austin M Carr 179 0 0 4 0 0
11 Mike McKinney 174 0 1 3 0 0
12 John Fidler 171 0 1 3 13 0
13 Garrett Niebruegge 136 0 0 4 8 0
14 Drew Herchko 130 0 0 4 58 1
15 James Edens 122 0 1 3 0 0
16 Joshua Laughton 117 0 0 4 0 0
17 Phillip Diaz 115 0 0 4 0 0
18 Casey Kirwan 113 0 0 4 0 0
19 David Heileman 109 0 1 3 0 0
20 Kevin Dedmon 104 0 0 4 0 0
21 Zak Rounds 103 0 0 4 0 0
22 Randall Carter 89 0 0 4 0 0
23 Brandon Schmidt 80 0 0 4 0 0
24 Jacob Fields 71 0 0 4 0 0
25 Adam Elby 61 0 0 4 13 0
26 Ricky Thornton 59 0 0 1 15 0
27 Chris Brenner 49 0 0 3 0 0
28 Virgil Graham 46 0 0 3 0 0
29 Marc Molnar 42 0 0 4 0 0
30 Justin Thomas 35 0 0 4 2 0
31 Charles Cosper 9 0 0 3 0 0
32 Chase Raudman 6 0 0 2 0 0
33 Jesse Carr 5 0 0 2 0 0
34 Kyle Johnson 2 0 0 1 0 0
35 Josh Phillips 2 0 0 2 0 0

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