Round 5 of the 2024 Winter Nationals concluded on Friday with two drivers showcasing unbeatable performances throughout the five days while on the fifth day, two new contenders emerged adding a new face to the series. Eight new Winter National Champions were crowned at the of the day closing out the time at Citrus County Speedway.

In the most competitive race of the day, coming from his first-place victory in the B-Main, London McKenzie found his way to the top step of the feature race podium. While early in the race it looked like Michael Crafton would win his third of the week but with competitive cautions and battles with Cooper Gaul, the cards kept aligning for McKenzie as he drove his way through the chaos and found himself in the front by Lap 11.

As other racers engaged in intense bumper-to-bumper action resulting in them being sent to the back, McKenzie's path to the checkered flag became even clearer as the race continued. Despite determined efforts from Crafton and Ayrton Brockhouse to chase him down, McKenzie successfully secured his first career Semi-Pro win. McKenzie started the race ninth in points and with this win was able to jump up to second, 70 points behind Crafton, who still ended the race in second despite the changing field. Crafton ended the week with two wins and 488 points clinching the Semi-Pro title.

“I can’t thank Race Driver Performance (his race team) enough, he had this thing rolling this week. Everything kind of clicked this week,” Crafton said. “The last race got a little rough but we won two of them and finished third in one so it’s been a pretty strong week.”

In the Pro Division competition, the battle for the championship title unfolded at the back of the race as point leaders Cameron Bolin and Jake Bollman found themselves trailing in the pack. While Garrett Gumm and Joel Smith fiercely battled for first place in Round 5, Bolin and Bollman engaged in their own fight for points in the back. In a second attempt to start lap 23, another battle began for first place between Sean McElearney and Jaron Gianni while Bolin and Bollman continued their strides to make it back to the front to claim as many points as possible.

Ultimately, McElearney was able to win his first win of the series, while Bolin managed to make it back to fourth place after a setback by Bollman in the last lap. The Pro Division concluded with Bolin in first place with 473 points, 20 points ahead of Bollman.  

”Strong will and determination to just give my guys the best finish they deserve,” Bolin said on how he managed to come from the back of the pack to fourth to finish. “We didn’t come down here worried about points racing we just looked on Wednesday and saw that we were close and just capitalized on Thursday and had to keep the momentum into Friday.”

Kicking off the day in the Beginner Bandolero Division, Roo Reaves reclaimed first place in Victory Lane for the second day in a row. Despite Reaves aiming to narrow the points gap with Rhylee Hutchins, she was able to put together a strong enough finish to retain her points lead, clinching the Winter Nationals Beginner Bando Championship by 18 points over Reaves.

As for the Chargers Division, Matthew Laprade was able to end the series undefeated but it didn’t come easy in Round 5. Starting in P2 behind Rose Borntreger, Laprade faced a challenging battle for the lead throughout the race. The turning point came on the final lap in Turn 4 as Laprade took the inside to slide past Borntreger in the closing seconds. This ending secured Laprade’s undefeated week and clinched him the Chargers title for the series with a perfect 500 points.

In the Young Lions division, Max Reaves was able to seal the deal in a green-to-checkered flag race. Going into the race Reaves was leading in points with 391 looking to hold off Caden Tufts who started right behind him in P2.  During the race, Keelan Harvick was able to make a jump from in the field to third place but was not able to get past Tufts and Reaves in the front. With a cautionless race, Reaves was only able to extend his lead and was at a 2-second gap by Lap 21. As the checkered flag flew, Reaves finalized his title as Winter National followed by Tufts at second and Harvick at third.

The Round 5 Bandit race to a championship was separated by only three points as Brexton Busch led the day with 391 points with Wyatt Coffey right behind him at 388. While Busch started at P2 with Coffey at P3, Busch quickly took charge at the front while Coffey and James Faulkner battled for second. Despite Coffey’s attempts to pass on restarts, Busch pushed ahead to his second feature win of the week and the Winter National Bandits title, backing up his 2023 Beginner Bando championship.

In the Masters division, another new driver found his way to the front after mishaps from frontrunners Scott Moseley and Kevin Nowak. Kevin Rollins navigated his way to the front claiming the number one spot in Round 5 which also took him from sixth overall in points to the podium in third place ending with 440 points. Although Mosely and Nowak initially led the race with Rollins on their back, a mishap in Lap 14 sent them to the back, leaving room for a new Masters winner. Nowak managed to recover and secured third place for the day but wasn’t able to earn enough to take the championship. Moseley claimed the title with 471 points as Nowak trailed behind with 463.

TJ Moon met his toughest competition of the week in the final round of the Outlaw Division contending with Owen Zacharies closely trailing him in both points and in the Round 5 race. The battle between the two unfolded throughout the entirety of the race with Moon initially taking an early lead. Unlike previous days where he was able to make some distance between his next competitors, Zacharias stayed with him as they had a back-and-forth struggle for the lead in the first nine laps. After a restart in Lap 10, Moon managed to pull ahead leaving Zacharias and Carter Erickson to battle for second. Remaining victorious, Moon took both the first-place trophy for the day as well as the overall Outlaw Winter National Champion title with a perfect 500 score.

The next national event will be the Nashville Spring Series with the official dates to be announced in the coming weeks.

RESULTS

PRO DIVISION

Round 5 Feature (25 Laps): 1. 98-Sean McElearney[2]; 2. 25G-Jaron Giannini[5]; 3. 19MA-Jase Mongeon[7]; 4. 67-Cameron Bolin[4]; 5. 19-TJ DeCaire[11]; 6. 28R-Landon Rapp[8]; 7. 24-Richie Davidowitz[9]; 8. 24S-Joel Smith[3]; 9. 91-Martin Gatzulis[10]; 10. 71-Jake Bollman[6]; 11. 5-Garrett Gumm[1]; 12. (DNS) 25-Gage Gilby; 13. (DNS) 124-Jackson Denton; 14. (DNS) 32-Jensen Jorgensen; 15. (DNS) 40-Nick Lascuola; 16. (DNS) 75-Nick Woodall

SEMI-PRO DIVISION

Round 5 Feature (25 Laps): 1. 95-London McKenzie; 2. 9-Michael Crafton[3]; 3. 64-Devin Deshaies[17]; 4. 12B-Ayrton Brockhouse[16]; 5. 38W-Cameron White[14]; 6. 0-Jerrod Holle[15]; 7. 0W-Tanton Woodridge; 8. 35-Preston Wrisley[10]; 9. 8-Cooper Gaul[2]; 10. 26-JT Poole[18]; 11. 29-Cole Robie[5]; 12. 2B-Stephen Brucker; 13. 97-Isaac Kitzmiller[6]; 14. 23-Josh Lowe[4]; 15. 31M-Sam Mazzo[11]; 16. 22C-Chase Burgeson[19]; 17. 5X-Jesse Martinez[13]; 18. 16-Mason Walters[20]; 19. 09P-Josh Parsons[1]; 20. 09-Chase VanHouten[8]; 21. 21-Mitch Wright[12]; 22. 60-Dylan Faulkner[7]; 23. 01-Brody Gunter; 24. 81-Hunter Jordan[9]

B Feature 1 (12 Laps): 1. 95-London McKenzie[4]; 2. 0W-Tanton Woodridge[9]; 3. 38-Galen Clark[1]; 4. 85-Bradley Swift[2]; 5. 12-Travis Walker[7]; 6. 74-Jacob Linc[3]; 7. 97B-Jake Baker[5]; 8. (DNS) 23D-Teagan Dempsey; 9. (DNS) 10-Tyler Garreston

B Feature 2 (12 Laps): 1. 2B-Stephen Brucker[3]; 2. 01-Brody Gunter[6]; 3. 25-Nate Morris[7]; 4. 33-Clayton Bohanon[4]; 5. 27N-Nicholaus Bulkeley[5]; 6. 78-Gracie Crocker[1]; 7. 84-Noah Healey[8]; 8. 9B-Michael Bradshaw[2]; 9. (DNS) 24-Ayden Christensen

MASTERS DIVISION

Round 5 Feature (25 Laps): 1. 93-Kevin Rollins[3]; 2. 47-Brad Hall[6]; 3. 24-Kevin Nowak[2]; 4. 81-Lee Jordan[7]; 5. 77W-Robbie Woodall[4]; 6. 00-Scott Moseley[1]; 7. 5-Brandin Wrisley[8]; 8. 31-Giles Martin[9]; 9. 15-Bill Plemons Jr[5]; 10. 2-Jim Sylvester[12]; 11. 15S-Tim Skinner Jr[14]; 12. H20-Darrell Buckingham[11]; 13. 65-Mike Floyd[18]; 14. 21-Brad Vanhouton[10]; 15. (DNS) 2B-Chris Byerly; 16. (DNS) 21M-Josh Mullins; 17. (DNS) 17-Patrick Owens; 18. (DNS) 77S-Doug Stevens

YOUNG LIONS DIVISION

Round 5 Feature (25 Laps): 1. 88-Max Reaves[1]; 2. 00-Caden Tufts[3]; 3. 62-Keelan Harvick[7]; 4. 20A-Ashton Williams[2]; 5. 46-Nicholas Denton[4]; 6. 79-Neal Dulin[9]; 7. 7-Kai Johnson[5]; 8. 21-Nathan Lyons[6]; 9. 17M-Taylor Mayhew[8]; 10. 17-Ben Morabito[12]; 11. 23-Trayc Walker Scott[14]; 12. 4Z-Ryan Zima[18]; 13. 87-Anastasia Markovic[11]; 14. 26-Laquan McCoy[16]; 15. 99-Spencer Bradshaw[10]; 16. 15-Alison Johnson[13]; 17. 7B-Karter Beattie[15]; 18. (DNS) 62B-Dylan Bongiovanni

OUTLAWS DIVISION

Round 5 Feature (20 Laps): 1. 9M-TJ Moon[1]; 2. 35-Owen Zacharias[2]; 3. 8-Carter Erickson[12]; 4. 37-Carson Cauble[7]; 5. 33-Cullen O'Connor[9]; 6. M00-Lily Impellizzeri[10]; 7. 87-Chloe Mazzagatti[11]; 8. 2B-Owen Byerly[15]; 9. 41-Mandi Lee[17]; 10. 7K-Kamryn Mallette[13]; 11. 80-Bryson Nichols[5]; 12. 000-Lincoln Johnson[4]; 13. 13-Addison Martinez[3]; 14. 75-Allee Johnson[14]; 15. 2-Lily Whynot[16]; 16. 12-Jay Hemenway[6]; 17. 9-Carson Sherman[8]

BANDITS DIVISION

Round 5 Feature (20 Laps): 1. 18B-Brexton Busch[2]; 2. 2-Wyatt Coffey[3]; 3. 007-James Faulkner[1]; 4. 7-Harley Johnson[5]; 5. 55-Landon Thrasher[9]; 6. 22-Bentley Thompson[4]; 7. 38L-Billy Lee[8]; 8. 1J-James Behnke[7]; 9. 9-Jack Smith[12]; 10. 38-Gerald White III[6]; 11. 13-Luka Dib[13]; 12. 83-Hudson Ruff[16]; 13. 11-Bryson Carlbert[14]; 14. 4B-Jordan Bauer[17]; 15. 5-Chris Flynn[18]; 16. T2-Camden Truett[15]; 17. 4-Wesley Baumeister[11]; 18. 66-Evan Johnson[10]; 19. (DNS) 84-Delaney Gray

CHARGERS DIVISION

Round 5 Feature (15 Laps): 1. 18-Matthew Laprade[2]; 2. 51-Rose Borntreger[1]; 3. 75-Makenna Crocker[3]; 4. 22-Austin Warner[7]; 5. 9-Abi Johnson[5]; 6. 46-Lane Christensen[8]; 7. 38-Emma Britt[10]; 8. 16-Samuel Macedo[4]; 9. 19-Ryan Pomposelli[16]; 10. 4-Tyler Lupton[6]; 11. 13-Ben Mack[13]; 12. 29-Kendall VanHouten[11]; 13. 24A-Dylan Abramo[9]; 14. 15-Jayden Johnson[12]; 15. 19B-Victoria Beaner[14]; 16. 99-Kaden Bradshaw[17]; 17. (DNS) 9F-Will Franklin

BEGINNER BANDO DIVISION

Round 5 A Feature (15 Laps): 1. 40-Roo Reaves[1]; 2. 15-Rhylee Hutchins[2]; 3. 34J-Joseph Weiss[4]; 4. 8-Bristol Monroe[6]; 5. 5-Corbin Cannon[3]; 6. 16P-Maci Prowell[7]; 7. 88-Chase Bohanon[5]; 8. 16H-Landon Heaton[10]; 9. 16-Tayton Monroe[9]; 10. 11-Addison Veinotte[8]

Round 5 B Feature (12 Laps): 1. 12B-Jaxon Burnett[8]; 2. 18-Michael Mazzagatti[2]; 3. 9-Maverick Bradshaw[4]; 4. 05-Charlee Hutchins[6]; 5. 00-Tinsley Meyers[9]; 6. 7B-Kylea Beattie[5]; 7. 55-John Willis[10]; 8. 18V-Leighton VanHouten[7]; 9. 51-Brody Thompson[1]; 10. 31-Colton Murphy[3]; 11. (DNS) 7-Camden Powers

FINAL POINTS

PRO DIVISION

1. Cameron Bolin (473); 2. Jake Bollman (453); 3. Landon Rapp (441); 4. Joel Smith (431); 5. Garrett Gumm (428); 6. Jaron Giannini (424); 7. Richie Davidowitz (418); 8. TJ DeCaire (409); 9. Jase Mongeon (408); 10. Sean McElearney (400); 11. Martin Gatzulis (400); 12. Jackson Denton (314); 13. Gage Gilby (298); 14. Nick Woodall (293); 15. Jensen Jorgensen (250); 16. Nick Lascuola (209)

SEMI-PRO DIVISION

1. Michael Crafton (488); 2. London McKenzie (418); 3. Cole Robie (409); 4. Chase VanHouten (407); 5. Isaac Kitzmiller (406); 6. Tanton Woodridge (404); 7. Cooper Gaul (401); 8. Brody Gunter (396); 9. Jesse Martinez (367); 10. Preston Wrisley (366); 11. Hunter Jordan (363); 12. Jerrod Holle (361); 13. Ayden Christensen (359); 14. Cameron White (356); 15. Ayrton Brockhouse (356); 16. Devin Deshaies (354); 17. Mitch Wright (354); 18. Josh Parsons (353); 19. Dylan Faulkner (339); 20. Stephen Brucker (335); 21. Josh Lowe (328); 22. Chase Burgeson (325); 23. JT Poole (308); 24. Nate Morris (301); 25. Nichalaus Bulkeley (297); 26. Galen Clark (290); 27. Mason Walters (284); 28. Bradley Swift (276); 29. Sam Mazzo (274); 30. Gracie Crocker (271); 31. Noah Healey (263); 32. Clayton Bohanon (258); 33. Jacob Linc (253); 34. Michael Bradshaw (242); 35. Travis Walker (236); 36. Jake Baker (233); 37. Tyler Garretson (214); 38. Teagan Dempsey (200); 39. Rose Borntreger (143)

MASTERS DIVISION

1. Scott Moseley (471); 2. Kevin Nowak (463); 3. Kevin Rollins (440); 4. Brad Hall (440): 5. Brandin Wrisley (434); 6. Lee Jordan (433); 7. Bill Plemons Jr. (416); 8. Jim Sylvester (416); 9. Giles Martin (400); 10. Darrell Buckingham (398); 11. Brad VanHouten (382); 12. Tim Skinner Jr. (374); 13. Robbie Woodall (368); 14. Mike Floyd (364); 15. Chris Byerly (224); 16. Doug Stevens (170); 17. Patrick Owens (139); 18. Josh Mullins (65)

YOUNG LIONS DIVISION

1. Max Reaves (491); 2. Caden Tufts (465); 3. Keelan Harvick (461); 4. Kai Johnson (452); 5. Neal Dulin (432); 6. Ashton Williams (408); 7. Nathan Lyons (408); 8. Nicolas Denton (400); 9. Ben Morabito (398); 10. Trayc Walker-Scott (394); 11. Ryan Zima (393); 12. Anastasia Markovic (392); 13. Taylor Mayhew (378); 14. Spencer Bradshaw (360); 15. LaQuan McCoy (344); 16. Alison Johnson (337); 17. Karter Beattie (334); 18. Dylan Bongiovanni (278)

OUTLAWS DIVISION

1. TJ Moon (500); 2. Owen Zacharias (485); 3. Bryson Nichols (443); 4. Carter Erickson (432); 5. Cullen O'Connor (426); 6. Lincoln Johnson (425); 7. Carson Cauble (411); 8. Jay Hemenway (405); 9. Carson Sherman (396); 10. Owen Byerly (384); 11. Chloe Mazzagatti (378); 12. Addison Martinez (372); 13. Lily Impellizzeri (370); 14. Allee Johnson (370); 15. Mandi Lee (366); 16. Lily Whynot (355); 17. Kamryn Mallette (347)

BANDITS DIVISION

1. Brexton Busch (491); 2. Wyatt Coffey (485); 3. James Faulkner (447); 4. Jack Smith (437); 5. Billy Lee III (436); 6. Bentley Thompson (434); 7. Harley Johnson (424); 8. Landon Thrasher (418); 9. Gerald White III (402); 10. James Behnke (389); 11. Wesley Baumeister (372); 12. Luka Dib (355); 13. Bryson Carlbert (351); 14. Hudson Ruff (351); 15. Jordan Bauer (349); 16. Evan Johnson (348); 17. Camden Truett (344); 18. Chris Flynn (335); 19. Delaney Gray (278)

CHARGERS DIVISION

1. Matthew Laprade (500); 2. Lane Christensen (468); 3. Makenna Crocker (441); 4. Samuel Macedo (435); 5. Emma Britt (432); 6. Ryan Pomposelli (425); 7. Austin Warner (417); 8. Abi Johnson (408); 9. Dylan Abramo (390); 10. Kendall VanHouten (372); 11. Ben Mack (368); 12. Kaden Bradshaw (359); 13. Victoria Beaner (343); 14. Will Franklin (266); 15. Tyler Lupton (248); 16. Rose Borntreger (188); 17. Jayden Johnson (138)

BEGINNER BANDO DIVISION

1. Rhylee Hutchins (491); 2. Roo Reaves (473); 3. Jaxon Burnett (448); 4. Bristol Monroe (446); 5. Corbin Cannon (432); 6. Tinsley Meyers (406); 7. Chase Bohanon (404); 8. Michael Mazzagatti (390); 9. Tayton Monroe (388); 10. Brody Thompson (368); 11. Colton Murphy (367); 12. Charlee Hutchins (360); 13. Addison Veinotte (350); 14. Maverick Bradshaw (346); 15. Kylea Beattie (343); 16. Maci Prowell (316); 17. Leighton VanHouten (261); 18. Landon Heaton (236); 19. Joseph Weiss (185); 20. John Willis (66)