Marion, IL – In what was the first of two visits in 2017 for the POWRi Speedway Motors 600cc Outlaw Micro League to Southern Illinois Raceway, Dereck King charged from the eighth place starting spot to take the win over Joey Wirth and Jake Palmisano in front of a hometown crowd.
At the drop of the green flag, King went to work picking off cars as pole sitter Joey Wirth led the field. Enduring multiple cautions and one red, Wirth held onto the lead until shortly after a mid-race caution. Coming back to green second place sitting King charged to the bottom of turn one for a slide job for the lead. Wirth quickly returned, but King had the momentum he needed and shot to the bottom of three and four and took point exiting the turn.
For the final half of the race, King had Wirth and third place finisher Palmisano covered. Joe B. Miller, who dominated the 2016 Southern Illinois Raceway showings, took fourth after battling with Palmisano for third, while Matthew Howard rounded out the top five.
“That was a lot of fun,” Dereck King said. “This car was so good to drive, it’s awesome. Josh Kilgore, Lance, everybody that worked on it this winter, they put a lot into it and this is for them. BOSS Chassis, FTZ, it felt like I was out for a Sunday drive. The car has so much forward bite and drive off the corner. This is a practice for next week.”
“I was hoping to get my first national win here,” commented Joey Wirth. “This is the first time back since we wrecked in August in the non-wing and kind of ended our season. It’s been a great year. We ran the midget twice as we’re kind of getting into our midget program now. This is the fifth time in a micro and we’ve ran four top fives with POWRi. Just jumped the cushion too many times in three and four.”
“Guys like Joey and DK and Joe B., I know Joe B. was pressuring me pretty hard,” stated Jake Palmisano. “It’s fun racing these guys on a weekly basis. Going back and forth with them, you know they are guys you can trust. We’ve worked on this car with Frank Flud and Jake Hagopian and finally got something that seems to be working and we finally got some luck tonight. We ran second the first night out to Craig Ronk, I think who’s won some POWRi shows. Car was great tonight. I think we need a little bit more forward bite, but the D1 was rolling.”
Micros
Speedway Motors Heat Race Winners: Heat 1: 45 - Lucas Pejakovich, Heat 2: 77W - Joey Wirth, Heat 3: 32K - Dereck King, Heat 4: 10 - Tyler Rust, Heat 5: 53 - Brayden Fox
Toyota Semi Feature Winners: 88 - BJ Gatewood, 42 - Andy Bishop
Mesilla Valley Transportation Feature Winner: 32K - Dereck King
POWRi Speedway Motors 600cc Outlaw Micro League Feature Results (30 laps): 1. 32K - Dereck King 2. 77W - Joey Wirth 3. 2P - Jake Palmisano 4. 51B - Joe B Miller 5. 8H - Matthew Howard 6. 37H - Nicholas Howard 7. 14 - Kurt Westerfield 8. 42 - Andy Bishop 9. 53 - Brayden Fox 10. 45 - Lucas Pejakovich 11. 28 - Luke Verardi 12. 20 - Tayler Hungate 13. 39 - Russ Disinger 14. 88 - BJ Gatewood 15. 99 - Alec Long 16. 71E - Caden Englehart 17. 10 - Tyler Rust 18. 23T - Drake Turner 19. 2JR - Jimmy Stearns 20. 2J - Jaxon Bishop 21. 10K - Luke Kilgore 22. 55B - Brandon Anderson - DQ
For further information, visit www.powri.com, “Like” POWRi on Facebook and follow @POWRi_Racing on Twitter.