Tanner Pettit earns first career win in wild World of Outlaws Pro Series round at Weedsport Speedway

The second round of the World of Outlaws Pro Series: Powered by iRacing’s 2024-25 season took 35 of the best dirt oval racers to Weedsport Speedway on Monday night. Following qualifying the week prior, a different looking group of drivers took to the 410 Sprint Cars for the second round. Making his first start of the season, Tanner Pettit managed to accomplish what he just barely came up short of doing a season ago, winning his first career World of Outlaws Pro Series race.

Pettit started in the third position after setting the sixth fastest time in qualifying. A Heat winner in last year’s iteration, Pettit was able to skip the Heat this year thanks to his qualifying efforts. The win places Pettit eighth in the standings after missing the opening round at Volusia in the Late Models. In total, 20 different drivers qualified this week as opposed to the week prior, and that won’t be uncommon with the swap between cars all season, as well as the varied tracks they’ll visit throughout.

QUALIFYING

A new wrinkle to the points format this season includes both Championship points and automatic transfers to the Feature from qualifying, as well as an invert. The top-eight qualifying times every race will forgo all other pre-feature activities, including Heats and Last Chance races.

Last week’s winner Logan Rumsey set the fastest lap, collecting 25 points towards the championship, but would start eighth following the invert. Coy Vlies, who wound up eighth, took a share of 17 points and inverted to the pole position for the Feature race.

Weedsport Qualifying Top 8:

1. Logan Rumsey
2. JD Brown
3. Nick Cooper
4. Tyler Schell
5. Bradley Cox
6. Tanner Pettit
7. Mike Augustine
8. Coy Vlies

HEATS

Everyone from ninth on back in qualifying were sorted into three Heat races of up to nine cars each. This season, only the top-three transfer to the Feature from the Heats, and everyone else is sent to fend for themselves in the Last Chance races.

Heat 1 saw Chase Stewart victorious. Heat 2 had Trey Mills hold off Kendal Tucker for the win. From the fifth starting spot in the third and final Heat, Blake Matjoulis forced his way into the lead, passing James Edens on the last lap to win.

Heat 1 Transfers:

1. Chase Stewart
2. Dylan Yeager
3. Ryan Avila

Heat 2 Transfers:

1. Trey Mills
2. Kendal Tucker
3. Justen Stolz

Heat 3 Transfers:

1. Blake Matjoulis
2. James Edens
3. Ethan Johnson

LAST CHANCE RACES

The final four spots are set through the Last Chance races. These races saw the first real desperation of the season as drivers at the back attempted to force their way to the front at the tiny Weedsport facility.

The first saw Loic Bernier pull away from the field in the first lap while they all crashed behind for second. Landon Cardoza managed to sneak through it and take the second transfer while names like Nathan Waddell, Joey Lingron, and Talan Willis were eliminated from making the Feature. In the second and final race, it was more of the same. Ty Schobelock squeaked by as they crashed above him. Evan Seay, Kenny Hoffman, and Tyler Ducharme were all out before the end of the second lap. Shawn English took the final transfer spot in finishing second.

Last Chance 1 Transfers:

1. Loic Bernier
2. Landon Cardoza

Last Chance 2 Transfers:

1. Ty Schobelock
2. Shawn English

FEATURE RACE

Coy Vlies led the field to the green, but sent it too deep into the first corner, allowing Pettit to take control right away. Two laps later, the first caution of the season flew for Vlies. The pole sitter collected the wall, then took Rumsey and JD Brown with him.

Pettit led the field back to the green, where the field would enjoy a long green flag run once more. Mike Augustine, Bradley Cox, and Kendal Tucker were all in tow, but Pettit was on point, never missing a line. The second caution flew with six laps to go as Trey Mills and James Edens got together. Pettit once again got the restart, but another caution slowed the field one last time with two laps to go after Nick Cooper turned upside down on the frontstretch. Pettit managed one more perfect launch to take the victory.

Feature Race results from WORLD OF OUTLAWS PRO SERIES, Race 2 at WEEDSPORT were as follows:

WORLD OF OUTLAWS PRO SERIES Points following Race 2 at WEEDSPORT are as follows:

1. Kendal Tucker, 215
2. Blake Matjoulis, 198
3. Logan Rumsey, 191
4. Mike Augustine, 189
5. Dylan Yeager, 177
6. JD Brown, 167
7. Ethan Johnson, 164
8. Tanner Pettit, 119
9. Nathan R Waddell, 119
10. Bradley Cox/Talan Willis, 112

After two races, Kendal Tucker leads the way as the only driver with two top-five finishes so far. Blake Matjoulis just misses out on that same distinction after finishing in seventh at Weedsport, but it was enough to jump Logan Rumsey, who falls to third after his early incident in the Weedsport Feature. The top-seven drivers have made both Features so far this season, and the points reflect that as there’s 45 points from Ethan Johnson in seventh down to Tanner Pettit in eighth.

The next race will utilize the Late Model once again, and will be contested at Williams Grove Speedway. As it is all season, nobody is locked in for the next race, they will have to qualify in over the course of this week in the World of Outlaws Pro Qualifying Series official races, where the top-35 will be invited to race in the next race.

Race #3’s broadcast at Williams Grove will once again be live at 8:00 pm ET next Monday night, live on DIRTVision and all of iRacing’s social channels.

The driver roster will be set each week through qualifying races that are open to all members with a Class A Dirt Oval license. These races will run on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 8PM ET, and the top 35 point scorers will be invited to the iRacing World of Outlaws Pro Series league each week for the Monday night main event. After the Monday show, the league is cleared out, and the process begins again. Points will be tracked as normal across those 10 main events to crown the series champion. For details on how to qualify, visit www.iracing.com/woo-pro-series/qualifying.

For more information on the series, visit www.iracing.com/woo-pro-series. For more information on the World of Outlaws, visit www.worldofoutlaws.com. For more information on iRacing and for special offers, visit www.iracing.com.

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