8/14/2022
Lucas Oil MLRA
Tony Jackson Jr. Scores Second Consecutive MLRA Win at Maquoketa
Maquoketa, IA (August 13th, 2022) – Tony Jackson Jr. scored his second Lucas Oil MLRA win on the weekend on Saturday night cashing in on a classic back-and-forth battle with Chris Simpson at the Maquoketa Speedway. The win is “Prime Time’s” 13th all time under the MLRA banner, and his second straight at Maquoketa.
Kolby Vandenbergh got the night off to a fast start, scoring his second DirtonDirt.com Fast Time Award of the season with a lap of 13.989 seconds—just .003 seconds faster than series point leader Chad Simpson. Heat race checkers would go home with Chris Simpson, Jackson Jr., and Spencer Diercks.
The 30 lap main event would find the last two Maquoketa Speedway MLRA winners starting on the front row in Chris Simpson and Jackson JR. Jackson stole the lead on the first circuit, but it didn’t take Simpson long to return the favor. Simpson, who had ran third the previous two nights with the MLRA, used a power move to drive past Jackson on the lap two to take the lead.
Simpson started to put some distance between the leaders but the cushion was short lived as the duo caught lapped traffic on the races 7th lap. With two lapped cars to split for Simpson, Jackson used the situation to his advantage and was able to slip past the Oxford, IA driver to regain the race lead. Remaining caution free for the entire distance the leaders continued to navigate lapped traffic with Simpson stalking Jackson’s every move.
As the leaders exited turn four coming to the white flag, Jackson gave the fans more excitement then he bargained for as he slipped off the top side of the race track and allowed Simpson one more shot at the win. Jackson kept his foot in the gas and maintained his advantage, scoring the $5,000 win by .454 seconds over Simpson.
“There was two lapped cars there in front of me and they just covered my shield there with mud and I just got real tight so I didn’t want to lift because I didn’t know how close Chris was there,” explained Jackson. “It was a lot more banking off there (turn four) than I anticipated so I was just lucky to get back on.”
Frank Heckenast Jr. rallied to his best finish of the weekend and rounded out the podium in third. Spencer Diercks would come home in fourth followed by Chad Simpson.
“It threw us some curve balls there,” noted Jackson of the race surface. “It was so fast around the bottom and then it started throwing stuff up there in the middle but I could drive this thing anywhere,” he continued about his new Capital Chassis that he debuted on Thursday night, ending the weekend with a pair of victories.
Chris Simpson continued his steak of podium finishes and spoke of the pass for the lead in saying, “I just didn’t know where to go. When I was here a few years ago we won right on the top so I knew it would be vital to just get up top and ride. Once those lapped cars got the bottom worked in it just kind of threw crumbs up across the top and I got caught behind one. Tony, he’s aggressive, so he made it stick through there and it was a good clean pass. It would have been good to win but either way it’s another top three again, so we’ll take it.”
The third place run for Heckenast Jr. was his best of the season with the MLRA. “The track was good, it was a fun little track, it kind of takes me back to the glory days when I started. I just haven’t been around a race track like that in a long time so it was fun.”
“These guys obviously are a little bit faster than us, we’ve just been a third or fourth place car for three days now. We’ve got some stuff to work on but they are getting better and we need to get out of the box a little bit, but when we put it back we can run top five so we’ll keep plugging away with that and maybe get them next time.”
Another big three day weekend of action awaits the MLRA during the upcoming Labor Day Weekend starting off on Friday night September, 2nd at the Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City, KS. Action will move to the Lucas Oil Speedway the following night for the annual running of the Ron Jenkins Memorial. The 2nd Annual Weiner Nationals at the Randolph County Raceway will wrap up the weekend on Sunday night with the winner driving off with a $10,000 payday.
Maquoketa Speedway Contingencies 8/13/22
Lap Leaders –Jackson (1), Chris Simpson (2 - 7), Jackson (8 - 30)
?Cautions – 0
DirtonDirt.com “Overall Fast Time Award" -- Kolby Vandenbergh (13.989 sec.)
Lucas Oil Slick Mist "Pole Award" – Chris Simpson
Outerwears Crew Chief of the Race – Rob Schlup
Hooker Harness "11th Place Finisher" – Gary Webb
Performance Bodies "Performer of the Race" – Tony Jackson Jr.
Sunoco “Rookie of the Race” – Kolby Vandenbergh
Swift Springs “Move of the Race” – Tony Jackson Jr.
Midwest Sheet Metal "Points Leader Spoiler Challenge" – Chad Simpson
A Feature Cedar Creek Jerky 30 Laps | 00:12:12.525
- 56JR-Tony Jackson Jr[2]; 2. 32S-Chris Simpson[1]; 3. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[5]; 4. 29D-Spencer Diercks[3]; 5. 25-Chad Simpson[8]; 6. 15V-Kolby Vandenbergh[4]; 7. 15K-Justin Kay[7]; 8. 10P-Paul Parker[9]; 9. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[6]; 10. 99-Sawyer Specht[11]; 11. W56-Gary Webb[12]; 12. 07-Matt Ryan[15]; 13. 10T-Jeff Tharp[10]; 14. T22-Tegan Evans[14]; 15. 78S-Steve Stultz[16]; 16. 17-Tim Simpson[13]; 17. C15-Brandon Hamburg[17]
Heat 1 Midwest Sheet Metal 8 Laps | 00:03:20.279
- 32S-Chris Simpson[2]; 2. 15V-Kolby Vandenbergh[1]; 3. 15K-Justin Kay[4]; 4. 10T-Jeff Tharp[3]; 5. 17-Tim Simpson[6]; 6. 78S-Steve Stultz[5]
Heat 2-Hooker Harness 8 Laps | 00:04:23.518
- 56JR-Tony Jackson Jr[2]; 2. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[3]; 3. 25-Chad Simpson[1]; 4. 99-Sawyer Specht[4]; 5. T22-Tegan Evans[5]; 6. C15-Brandon Hamburg[6]
Heat 3 My Race Pass 8 Laps | 00:04:00.919
- 29D-Spencer Diercks[1]; 2. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[2]; 3. 10P-Paul Parker[3]; 4. W56-Gary Webb[4]; 5. 07-Matt Ryan[5]
Qualifying 1 Dirt on Dirt | 00:00:28.125
- 15V-Kolby Vandenbergh, 00:13.989[14]; 2. 25-Chad Simpson, 00:13.992[1]; 3. 29D-Spencer Diercks, 00:14.004[17]; 4. 32S-Chris Simpson, 00:14.089[6]; 5. 56JR-Tony Jackson Jr, 00:14.164[5]; 6. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck, 00:14.258[15]; 7. 10T-Jeff Tharp, 00:14.420[4]; 8. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr, 00:14.463[2]; 9. 10P-Paul Parker, 00:14.474[11]; 10. 15K-Justin Kay, 00:14.499[12]; 11. 99-Sawyer Specht, 00:14.578[10]; 12. W56-Gary Webb, 00:14.751[13]; 13. 78S-Steve Stultz, 00:14.884[3]; 14. T22-Tegan Evans, 00:15.110[8]; 15. 07-Matt Ryan, 00:15.215[16]; 16. 17-Tim Simpson, 00:15.886[9]; 17. C15-Brandon Hamburg, 00:17.092[7]
Article Credit: Billy Rock
Submitted By: Billy Rock
