The miraculous run and celebrations continue, even after his recent 16th birthday.
Tristan McKee is cementing himself as the hottest prospect in oval racing right now after a smooth performance en route to victory in Marne, Michigan. McKee declared his No. 5 car was “phenomenal” in victory circle after winning.
“It’s awesome to win at Berlin,” he said. “Super tough track, but all this goes to my crew, all the guys. We knew we had really good race pace like I said earlier, so the car was phenomenal.”
Bubba Pollard did not mince words regarding the introspect on his performance.
“I was terrible,” Pollard exclaimed. “I was terrible the whole race, wasn’t any good. I was tight, I thought the tire would give up more than it did, so I kind of had a lot of drive built into the car and it just never came around.”
McKee qualified fastest, however the dice roll inverted him back to eighth, meaning Chris Shannon and Tyler Lupton took the green for the first 50-lap segment, where Shannon paced every lap to the first competition yellow, while McKee began working forward.
The second segment was not as clean, only completing a lap before a two-car spin by Joey Doiron and Boris Jurkovic brought out the first natural caution of the evening. Evan Shotko, who started fourth, had made his way by Shannon on the outside at the restart, then proceeded to drive into the distance until McKee made his way to Shotko’s inside and passing for the lead on lap 97, taking segment two.
Shotko had an answer for McKee on lap 113, taking back the top spot from the No. 5, where McKee fell down to third after Bubba Pollard took advantage of the opportunity to be in the runner-up position. McKee had fallen back further afterward until the segment end at lap 200, with a three-way fight for third between Carson Hocevar, Michael Atwell, and Joey Doiron.
Brian Campbell went for a spin on lap 204, followed by a wild ride for Justin Thomas, climbing the left side of Scott Thomas after avoiding the stricken Campbell machine. McKee fought back up to third after a quick tussle with Hocevar, but leader Shotko needed to be on high alert, because Cleetus McFarland broke loose to the right of the leader, who avoided the spinning No. 33, but Keith Herp was not so fortunate, being hit and badly damaging the passenger door to his No. 18, bringing a yellow out with 19 circuits left.
This is NOT how Cleetus McFarland wanted his Tekton 250 Battle at Berlin to end …
McFarland expressed apologies to the Herp camp on his social media platforms, as well as debriefed what caused the incident.
“I tore up my brand new late model bad,” McFarland stated from the infield. “I made it out better than the team I hit [No. 18], who I just went and talked to, major apologies to them. I got real loose, and as they were coming by, overcooked the turn, got loose, I didn’t hit the leader but another car passing, while I was loose, got into their passenger side door.”
Shotko finally surrendered the lead again on the lap 231 restart, although sparks started emerging from underneath his No. 22, foreshadowing a right-front tire letting go with only ten laps to the finish.
A heartbreaker for Evan Shotko with 10 laps to go in the Battle at Berlin.
McKee and Pollard had the remaining nine laps to determine a winner until Pollard bottomed out in turn four, washing up the track and allowing McKee to get a nose ahead and clearing Pollard coming to six laps remaining. McKee held strong until the checkered flag and took home the trophy with a $40,000 grand prize.
