RICHMOND — Brian Sullivan’s lone start in a go kart this season proved to be the most lucrative of his career.

“I come out for the money shows,” Sullivan joked Wednesday night after claiming $5,041 by winning the Derek Kneeland Racing 100 at LST Motorsports Park. Sullivan, of Tolland, Connecticut, collected a winner’s share of $5,041 for the victory in his one and only Sr Champ kart race of 2022.

Fellow Connecticut native Mike Anderson finished second in the 21-car field, with Johnston, Rhode Island’s Brandon Tiezel completing the top three. A total of 36 karts entered the event with a total advertised purse of more than $12,000 in front of an estimated crowd of more than 1,000 spectators.

Sullivan, 39, last raced at the 1/7-mile speedway in 2014. 

“This (purse) is unheard of in the northeast,” said Sullivan, who competes weekly at Stafford (CT) Motor Speedway in an SK Modified. “Two thousand (dollars) was the biggest day I’d ever had. There’s some big races down south, but for northeast champ kart racing, this is just unheard of.”

Senior champ series driver Ryan Roof waits to get on track to try and qualify for the Derek Kneeland 100 on Wednesday at LST Motorsports Park in Richmond. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Sullivan dominated the first half of the race until the race’s first caution flag flew on lap 26. That brought out the red flag for an extended break while teams added fuel and made adjustments to their machines.

Chaos ensued over the next half hour, with eight consecutive attempts to restart the race mauled by spins and wrecks in the back half of the 21-car starting field. Mainely Karting officials made the decision to move to single-file restarts for the remainder of the night.

That helped the race’s second half find some momentum, with Dustin Gagne taking control ahead of Anderson and Sullivan.

The final caution of the night flew with four laps remaining, and Sullivan used a bold inside move to wrestle the lead from Anderson as the two rolled through turns one and two.

“I had planned to try and get away again, but (the kart) just did not fire off in the second segment,” Sullivan said. “All the restarts we had, it shoved the nose. It would finally settle in after five laps. I knew I had a good piece if I hit my marks. If we’d have had a caution (at the end), I don’t know if I would have gotten him.”

“I figured Brian and Dustin were going to get into a little bit more and I might just skate right through,” Anderson said.

Senior champ series driver Mike Rumery takes time trial laps during qualifying for the Derek Kneeland 100 on Wednesday July 13, 2022 at LST Motorsports Park in Richmond. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal

Anderson held on for a second over a wild final two laps, having relinquished the lead he’d worked so hard to gain. Anderson qualified fourth in time trials but was disqualified in post-qualifying technical inspection for unapproved adjustments and had to go through three rounds of heat racing just to lock his spot into the feature.

Having never seen the track prior to Wednesday, Anderson went from sixth to second in two laps once the race finally restarted through the spate of restart attempts.

“We were really good on the restarts,” Anderson said. “With all the cautions, it just seemed to work to our benefit.”

Sullivan and Tiezel were among the contingent of out-of-state drivers who hadn’t been to LST Motorsports Park since their childhood.

“Somehow we found ourselves in the top five (at the end). I was just hanging on and was content,” said Tiezel, who earned $1,000 for third place. “That’s not too bad. That covers fuel, tires and some of the beer that we’re probably going to slam down tonight.”

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