Seay Secures Third iRacing World of Outlaws ButtKicker Late Model Win, Extends Points Lead at Knoxville
September 13th, 2022 by Chris Leone
As if the first six rounds of the season didn’t do quite enough to establish Evan Seay’s status as the favorite for this year’s iRacing World of Outlaws ButtKicker Late Model Series title, he erased nearly all remaining doubt in Monday night’s feature from Knoxville Raceway. Seay carved his way up from fourth place on the grid to take the lead from polesitter Kendal Tucker, and remained just out of reach of second place Dylan Wilson in the closing laps to secure his third win of the season to tie teammate Blake Matjoulis. He also added nearly 20 points to his championship lead in the process, which now sits at 62 with just three races remaining.
Tucker topped the time trials with a lap of 17.598, but the spread between him, second place Wilson, and third place Dylan Yeager was just one one-hundredth of a second. The first two would win their heats, but James Edens would upset Yeager for the third heat victory before Seay scored the fourth. The two consolation races, meanwhile, saw plenty of star power, as three-time race winner Matjoulis—who also took the most recent round two weeks ago at Kokomo Speedway—and Kokomo third-place finisher Steven Wilson would need to win the B and C mains to move on.
When the green flag flew in the feature, Tucker would lead the closely matched heat winners through the first portion of the race before hitting the cushion to lose momentum. Wilson would take advantage and throw a successful slider to take the lead, but Seay would finally get past a fading Tucker for second just after halfway and began work on Wilson.
Laps 35 and 36 eventually produced the decisive moment. Seay and Wilson had been trading the lead, making contact to slow each other down and allowing the top five to close in. Tucker would briefly regain the lead in the battle, but Seay would reclaim the spot soon after, and when Tucker slid up the track, he crossed Wilson’s bumper to get unsettled and fall to fifth. Tucker would eventually drop all the way to ninth thanks to contact from Matjoulis with less than 10 laps to go, while Zack McSwain would mount a late charge past Edens for the final podium spot. Matjoulis proved to be the biggest position gainer on the night, gaining 12 positions to finish sixth as five drivers finished inside the top 10 after starting 11th or worse.
iRacing World of Outlaws ButtKicker Late Model Series results from Knoxville Raceway were as follows:
Fin. |
St. |
No. |
Driver |
Laps |
Interval |
Led |
Best |
Pts. |
1 | 4 | 33 | Evan Seay | 50 | 17 | 18.336 | 78 | |
2 | 2 | 80 | Dylan Wilson | 50 | -0.562 | 12 | 18.404 | 75 |
3 | 7 | 25 | Zack McSwain | 50 | -1.785 | 0 | 18.452 | 71 |
4 | 3 | 52 | James Edens | 50 | -2.312 | 0 | 18.439 | 69 |
5 | 11 | 48 | Dylan Yeager | 50 | -2.947 | 0 | 18.532 | 64 |
6 | 18 | 127 | Blake Matjoulis | 50 | -2.996 | 0 | 18.432 | 59 |
7 | 14 | 46 | Matthew Selby | 50 | -3.144 | 0 | 18.423 | 57 |
8 | 16 | 3 | Barrett Bishop | 50 | -3.250 | 0 | 18.438 | 54 |
9 | 1 | 00 | Kendal Tucker | 50 | -4.054 | 21 | 18.423 | 54 |
10 | 19 | 14 | JD Brown | 50 | -4.903 | 0 | 18.450 | 46 |
11 | 5 | 18 | Cameron Cason | 50 | -5.696 | 0 | 18.397 | 48 |
12 | 13 | 13 | Travis StClair | 50 | -6.404 | 0 | 18.499 | 44 |
13 | 6 | 82 | Dezmond Busby | 50 | -6.735 | 0 | 18.456 | 44 |
14 | 10 | 2 | Jesse Wall | 50 | -7.324 | 0 | 18.523 | 41 |
15 | 17 | 10 | Steven Wilson | 50 | -7.471 | 0 | 18.513 | 37 |
16 | 20 | 5 | Nathan R Waddell | 50 | -7.555 | 0 | 18.509 | 34 |
17 | 9 | 19 | Mike Augustine | 50 | -11.829 | 0 | 18.462 | 35 |
18 | 12 | 0 | Christopher McGuire | 50 | -16.164 | 0 | 18.443 | 33 |
19 | 15 | 38 | Travis Oldfield2 | 50 | -18.001 | 0 | 18.410 | 30 |
20 | 8 | 41 | Logan Rumsey2 | 49 | -1 L | 0 | 18.426 | 30 |
iRacing World of Outlaws ButtKicker Late Model Series points after seven rounds are as follows:
- Evan Seay, 533
- Blake Matjoulis, 471
- Dylan Yeager, 436
- Kendal Tucker, 422
- Dylan Wilson, 388
- Logan Rumsey, 383
- Dezmond Busby, 322
- Barrett Bishop, 317
- Zack McSwain, 296
- Damian Kiefer, 273
The iRacing World of Outlaws ButtKicker Late Model Series season continues on Monday, September 19 at 9PM ET with a visit to Weedsport Speedway. As always, the action can be streamed live across iRacing social media platforms and DirtVision. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.