Hagen Takes Third Midget Victory of Season

The Ford EcoBoost Challenge is a three race series that is sponsored by Ford, and the event at Tri-State Speedway is the final race of the Ford EcoBoost Challenge. The first two events were held at Bloomington Speedway in Bloomington, Indiana and Brownstown Speedway in Brownstown, Indiana on May 30th and 31st, respectively. The Ford EcoBoost Challenge event at Tri-State Speedway was recorded by MAVTV American Reel and will be shown at a later date. Fans will be able to witness the action from home on channel 248 on Dish Network or on channel 214 on DirecTV. MAVTV is also available on other providers. Go to www.MAVTV.com and click on “GET MAVTV” to find out if MAVTV is available to you.

At the drop of the green flag, pole-sitter Darren Hagen would jump into the lead on the high side ahead of Tyler Thomas, Dereck King, and Seth Motsinger. As Hagen and Thomas would begin to pull away from the field, King and Motsinger would battle until Motsinger was able to slide his Esslinger-powered BOSS Chassis in front of King in turns three and four for the third position. Piloting the Five-Six Inc., Shane Hmiel-owned, Esslinger-powered Beast Chassis, Hagen would craftily work his way through lap traffic as Motsinger set his sights on Tyler Thomas for second. But, just as Motsinger would begin to close the gap, Jacob Patton of Bethalto, Illinois would loop his car in turns three and four, bringing out the caution with 17 laps in the book.

With the field bunched back up, and lap cars in the mix, the stage was set for a fierce battle for second between Thomas and Motsinger. When green flag racing resumed, Motsinger would mount his charge, but unfortunately make contact with the lap car of Ryan Criswell in turns three and four and both cars would come to a halt, bringing out the second and final caution of the 30 lap feature event. With green flag racing once again underway, Hagen would pick up right where he left off before the caution, pulling away from the field as Zach Daum’s Toyota-powered Eagle would make its way into the mix, picking off both Dereck King and Tyler Thomas in consecutive laps.

“Just to be a part of this and drive for Shane Hmiel; what an awesome experience to drive for this young man,” explained Hagen. “I couldn’t do it without all my crew. They make my job easy. Thank you to POWRi and thank you to the fans, because without you we wouldn’t be here.”

As Darren Hagen cruised to victory, followed by Zach Daum for second, Dereck King would steal third dueling with Tyler Thomas and the Esslinger-powered BOSS Chassis of Kevin Thomas, Jr. “We were a little tight early,” explained Daum. The track didn’t really slick up, just got a couple of defined grooves which really helped our car. We just need to get a little bit better, but congratulations to Darren.

“It was a pleasure to drive and this track is prepared awesome,” explained Dereck King. “To run like we did, I thought we could have had second, but the car got a little warm and I didn’t push it probably as hard as I could. We were better in the beginning than we were at the end.”

In POWRi Speedway Motors 600cc Outlaw Micro Series competition at the high-banked ¼ mile Tri-State Speedway, Nathan Benson of Concordia, Missouri would annihilate the competition in his Suzuki-powered Pace Chassis to bring home his second victory of the 2014 season. “We’ve raced in Indiana four times now and won three, Bloomington, Kokomo, and now Haubstadt, the first time we ever saw the place,” explained a jubilant Benson. “Hat’s off to POWRi and the track crew. I’m really excited about the rest of the year!”

Jason Harms of Riverton, Illinois brought home a second place finish in his Suzuki-powered Pace Chassis. “Considering we haven’t had a top ten all year, I’ll take this,” laughed a content Harms. “Everything worked out.”

Rounding out the top three, and earning a career-best finish was Zac Taylor hailing from Washington, Indiana in his Engler-injected, Runaway Chassis. “It feels good never having run here before. We’re getting better every weekend with the new car.”

POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget Series feature results (30 laps): 1. 56 – Darren Hagen 2. 5D – Zach Daum 3. 91 – Dereck King 4. 9K – Kevin Thomas Jr. 5. 91T – Tyler Thomas 6. 32 – Garrett Aitken 7. 37 – Chet Gehrke 8. 25 – Jake Blackhurst 9. 7 – Austin Brown 10. 37X – Hud Cone 11. 2 – Seth Motsinger 12. 55 – Nick Knepper 13. 15 – Andrew Felker 14. 9P – Parker Price-Miller 15. 39 – Spencer Bayston 16. 88 – Terry Babb 17. 50 – Daniel Adler 18. 3N – Jake Neuman 19. 39X – Ross Rankine 20. 79J – Jacob Patton 21. 11R – Ryan Chriswell 22. 5C – Colten Cottle 23. 22 – Andy Malpocker

POWRi Speedway Motors 600cc Outlaw Micro Series feature results (20 Laps): 1. 2B – Nathan Benson 2. 52 – Jason Harms 3. 46 – Zac Taylor 4. 77W – Joey Wirth 5. 17C – Chris Openshaw 6. 1 – Dereck King 7. 39 – Austin Stewart 8. 9K – Kyle Schuett 9. 23 – Jeremy Camp 10. 21 – Aaron Andruskevitch 11. 65E – Chad Eliott 12. 99 – Alec Long 13. 19 – Natasha Cox 14. 14 – Danny Clark 15. 10 – Trevor Moody 16. 18 – Steve Finn 17. 20 – Mike Valette 18. 3N – Jake Neuman 19. 22M – Danny Malpocker 20. 27B – Bobby Fulkerson 21. 17 – Kendall Wruble 22. 99X – Derek Warren 23. 24F – Donnie Gentry

For more information, visit www.powri.com

RacingNation Crew