NORFOLK, Neb. – Chad Simpson put an end to a Lucas Oil MLRA winless streak on Saturday night at the Off Road Speedway, cashing in on the $5,000 to win Renegade 50.
The victory for the two time series champion is his 15th MLRA win all time and first since June of 2019 at the Rapid Speedway.
Tad Pospisil came into the weekend looking for his second career series win and looked to be in good shape early in the night as he collected the Dirt On Dirt Fast Time and paced the field from the pole position for the 50 lap main event alongside of Justin Zeitner. The early going would see a pair of quick cautions in the first five laps before giving way to a long green flag run at the one-third-mile facility.
Pospisil controlled the early segment with Simpson moving into the runner-up spot early in the going. With both leaders running the extreme high line, Simpson was able to capitalize on an opportunity in heavy lapped traffic and took the lead from Pospisil for the first time on lap 23. Simpson slowly began to distance himself from the field over the next few laps while still having to maneuver heavy traffic.
On lap 26 Simpson would make contact with the lapped car of Cale Osborn, resulting in Osborn spinning and coming to rest at the top of turn two. Second running Johnny Scott made right side contact with Osborn and continued on but was followed into the incident by Pospisil who clipped the idle machine of Osborn and rolled multiple times before coming to rest. Both drivers were ok following the incident, but saw their nights come to an early end.
Following the near 20 minute red flag, Simpson would set sail for the remaining 24 laps. Scott continued to stalk his every move from the runner-up spot and took advantage of a Simpson miscue and stole the top spot on lap 33, only to give way off the exit of turn two turning the lead back over to Simpson.
The final 17 laps would be near nose to tail between the series top two drivers, but in the end Simpson scored the victory by a margin of .998 seconds over Scott. Justin Zeitner continued his impressive weekend with a third place podium run followed by Kolby Vandenbergh and Ben Schaller rounding out the top five.
Simpson has finished in the top-five in all but one regular MLRA start in 2022 and was glad to get his Ideal-Ready Mix Black Diamond Chassis back into victory lane.
“It’s definitely been way too long,” Simpson said. “We struggled last year a little bit and didn’t get a win and it’s fun to finally get back here where we want to be,” he noted. “Early on there I was just kind of conserving and following Tad there. I knew he was good and knows how to get around here. He was just kind of sitting there waiting for them lap cars and it allowed me to kind of sneak up on him and get around him in the lap cars. Then I just had to stay aggressive with the lap cars.”
Scott will retain the Midwest Sheet Metal Spoiler indicative of the series top driver.
“When that wreck happened over there it ripped the whole right side off of my car and after that I was just kind of hanging on,” Scott said. “Before that happened I think we had a car to win it, but congrats to Chad he did a hell of a job. I got under him that one time and could have probably slid him, but it wouldn’t have been clean, so I just backed off and settled for second. Sometimes that’s just what you’ve got to do.”
As for Zeitner, who was making his first MLRA starts of the season, it was a pretty solid weekend scoring a pair of podium finishes.
“If you’d have told me this before we left the shop I’d have been ok with it, but then I drive my race car and I know what I need to do better and I want to be up there in victory lane, but we’ll get there,” Zeitner said.
The Finish:
Feature (50 Laps): 1. 25-Chad Simpson[3]; 2. 1ST-Johnny Scott[8]; 3. 62-Justin Zeitner[2]; 4. 15V-Kolby Vandenbergh[7]; 5. 98-Ben Schaller[11]; 6. 50-Kaeden Cornell[9]; 7. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[4]; 8. 07-Ben Sukup[12]; 9. 78S-Steve Stultz[16]; 10. 50C-Kayden Clatt[15]; 11. 9-Eric Vanosdall[17]; 12. 14M-Reid Millard[19]; 13. 45-Jon Haase[18]; 14. (DNF) 04-Tad Pospisil[1]; 15. (DNF) 36X-Chris Johnson[20]; 16. (DNF) 6C-Cale Osborn[10]; 17. (DNF) 1X-Aaron Marrant[5]; 18. (DNF) 21T-Travis Dickes[14]; 19. (DNF) 9A-Andy Eickhoff[22]; 20. (DNF) 22B-Gary Brown Jr[6]; 21. (DNF) 6-Al Humphrey[13]; 22. (DNF) 10C-Junior Coover[21]
Keyword: Simpson Snaps Three-Year Winless Streak