MACON, Ill. – Like a lot of other tracks on the DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals circuit, Mike Harrison’s won at Macon Speedway before and had no problem doing it again Thursday night.
Taking the lead from Jacob Rexing on lap three, Harrison put on another clinic as the defending winner of the Summit Modifieds race at Macon, leading the field back to the checkered untouched for his 52nd career tour victory.
“A few years ago, we figured something out here, and we just keep going back to that,” Harrison said in victory lane. “As long as I keep the wheels underneath it, the nose clean and all the air in the tires, it’s hard to beat this car right now.”
A few multi-car jingles got the race off to a slow start, forcing Harrison to be efficient with passing. He did exactly that, going from third to the lead inside of five laps.
Once Harrison cleared Rexing for the lead, only a few cautions occurred, forcing the six-time Summit Modified champion to only have to deal with restarts as the leader sparingly. Nonetheless, he was flawless on them, successfully defending the lead and his $1,500 top prize as he heads for Fayette County Speedway for more Summit Modified action on Friday.
Two-time and defending Summit Modified champion Nick Hoffman broke his streak of top-two finishes on the year after suffering a rare DNF. He completed a total of 17 laps before calling it a night after racing inside the top-10 early on.
Jeff Leka had a great run going in second, but the laps eventually wound down and his charge for Harrison was thwarted by the checkered flag. Ray Bollinger completed the podium while Rodney Standerefer and Jacob Rexing completed the top-five.
The finish:
1. 24H-Mike Harrison [3][]; 2. 3L-Jeff Leka [6][]; 3. 77-Ray Bollinger [5][]; 4. 28-Rodney Standerfer [13][]; 5. 59R-Jacob Rexing [2][]; 6. 36-Kenny Wallace [8][]; 7. 54-Shaun Horstmann [17][]; 8. 24-Zeke McKenzie [7][]; 9. 52-Billy Knebel [21][]; 10. 87Z-Zeb Moake [20][]; 11. 25W-Allen Weisser [14][]; 12. 11D-Brian Diveley [10][]; 13. 21M-Willy Myers [11][]; 14. 14-Rick Conoyer [18][]; 15. 34W-James Walters [1][]; 16. 71-Jeff Graham [16][]; 17. 7-Nick Hoffman [15][]; 18. 19C-Jeremy Nichols [12][]; 19. 1TPO-Tyler Peterson [19][]; 20. 10-Curt Rhodes [9][]; 21. 28B-Lucas Pace [22][]; 22. T6-Tommy Sheppard [4][]