Joe Evans Wins RoC Sportsman at Wyoming County, Kevin Timmerman Claims Title

Joe Evans won the Race of Champions Sportsman Modified Series finale at the Wyoming County BullRing Saturday afternoon, while Kevin Timmerman finished second to claim the series championship.

Both Evans and Timmerman saw their fortunes for the day change on lap 50. Mike Leaty and Jacob Christman came together while battling for the lead with Leaty spinning in turn two and Christman being sent to the rear of the field.

This allowed Evans to inherit the lead and put Timmerman in the driver’s seat in the title fight between himself and Christman. While Timmerman pressured Evans for the top spot in the closing laps, Evans held on for the win and Timmerman settled for second place and the title.

“It’s amazing,” said Evans in victory lane. “All the glory to God, he was with me the whole way there. It’s been a long time since I’ve won one of these races. I didn’t have kids yet. Two of them are over there. This is awesome.”

While it may have been a long wait for Evans to return to victory lane, he knew exactly what it was going to take to win.

“You watch a lot of these guys race, and the good guys get in that top four, get in the redraw, and if their car is good, they work to the front. We had great speed. We’ve been working our butts off on this thing for five years. We haven’t been able to get this thing to turn, and we finally got it to work this weekend.”

Meanwhile, Timmerman celebrated his first RoC Sportsman Modified championship. After finishing second in 2021 and third each of the past two seasons, Timmerman finally claimed the elusive series championship.

“It feels great,” said Timmerman. “We did the Spencer thing for a long time, won three of those NASCAR championships. We’ve been trying this for the past four years. We’ve always either been second or third. Today, we just got it done.”

Timmerman admitted he was content to allow Leaty to challenge Christman for the race win, knowing a third-place finish would be enough for the title if Leaty could hold on for the victory before his incident.

“It was hard. I played a little game and let Mike [Leaty] go because he was better than me. I just kept saying, Mike, get a good restart, because if Jake [Christman] won the race, he was going to win the championship. But if he finished second and I finished third, I won it.

“I get it, Jake was doing what he was trying to do. I feel bad for Mike, because he had a good car, probably a good enough car to win. It just worked out in our favor.”

Chris Finocchario finished third, followed by Andrew Lewis, Jr. and Alan Bookmiller.

In other RoC Family of Series action on Saturday, Joe Mancuso won the RoC Super Stock 30-lap feature, Russ Bulger, Jr. was victorious with the FOAR Score Four Cylinder Dash Series and Jeana Dietz won in the RoC 602 Sportsman Modifieds.

-Photo credit: MoJo Photos/Race of Champions

RoC Sportsman Modified Unofficial Results