Logan Rumsey reclaims points lead with second World of Outlaws Pro Series victory at Knoxville | World of Outlaws

By Justin Melillo

In August of 2023, Logan Rumsey entered Knoxville Raceway during the iRacing World of Outlaws Late Model Series with no victories to his name. A little over a year later, and the young real-world Sprint Car competitor from Pennsylvania is stacking wins, claiming his latest win at the Sprint Car Capital of the World in the World of Outlaws Pro Series on Monday night, claiming his second win on the season, his second career-win at the venue that gave him his first, and vaulting him back into the points lead over Kendal Tucker with four races remaining on the season.

With this Pro Series season split between Late Models and Sprint Cars, Rumsey isn’t the first driver to score multiple wins—Tanner Pettit was the only driver before tonight to have Sprint Car victories. However, it does make Rumsey the first to have wins in both disciplines, establishing him as one of the clear favorites entering the holiday break.

“I was just really lucky to hit the invert there,” Rumsey said post-race. “Qual times were really close. A couple thousandths slower, and I would have been in a Heat race. I kind of got lucky there, and it’s just really good to be on the front row of these Sprint Car races. You never really know what’s going to happen if you’re in the back. Adam (Elby) got a good start, I was hanging with him there in the first couple of laps. I started working the bottom. I knew the bottom would be good, that’s how this race is won every single year… I’m just really surprised I made it work.”

Down 17 points entering, Rumsey flips the script to leave Knoxville up 15 points over Tucker as the series takes a break for the holidays. The World of Outlaws Pro Series returns on January 6th, 2025, again in the Sprint Cars, racing for the first time at Huset’s Speedway, the newest dirt track added to iRacing in the latest build.

QUALIFYING

Every week, the new wrinkle to the points format this season, which includes both Championship points and automatic transfers to the Feature from qualifying, plays a big part in how the Features stack up with track position as important as ever. As it will be all season long, the top-eight qualifying times every race will forgo all other pre-feature activities, including Heats and Last Chance races, and line up in reverse order at the front of the field of the Feature.

Dylan Yeager wound up setting the quick time for the night, which included a 25 point bonus, but also meant an invert to start in eighth. Adam Elby won the eighth place starting lottery, collecting 17 points for it to invert to the pole. Rumsey qualified seventh fastest, which meant he would start second in the Feature. Two-time Sprint Car winner on the season, Tanner Pettit, qualified fifth fastest, which meant he would have a shot from the second row to get a three-peat of Sprint Car wins this season.

KNOXVILLE RACEWAY Qualifying Top 8:

1. Dylan Yeager
2. Aiden Forster
3. James Edens
4. Noah Carpenter
5. Tanner Pettit
6. Shawn English
7. Logan Rumsey
8. Adam Elby

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.

Many big names found themselves transferring into the Feature from this week’s Heat races. Ryan Avila, who finished second in last season’s iRacing World of Outlaws Sprint Car championship, was able to transfer in through Heat 1 ahead of Late Models Champion Evan Seay and Peyton Burton in third. Points leader entering, Kendal Tucker, won the second heat over Kenny Hoffman and JD Brown. Another former champion, Tyler Schell, won the third Heat over Loic Bernier and Mike Augustine.

Heat 1 Transfers:

1. Ryan Avila
2. Evan Seay
3. Peyton Burton

Heat 2 Transfers:

1. Kendal Tucker
2. Kenny Hoffman
3. JD Brown

Heat 3 Transfers:

1. Tyler Schell
2. Loic Bernier
3. Mike Augustine

LAST CHANCE RACES

The final four spots are set through the Last Chance races. With only 21 spots in the Feature, some of the names we’ve seen through the season, such as Joey Lingron, Chase Stewart, and Ty Schobelock, would be missing the main event as a result. Ethan Winter and Jarrett Liebert took two spots in the first Last Chance race, while Landon Cardoza and Connor Dudek were the final two transfers from the second.

Last Chance 1 Transfers:

1. Ethan Winter
2. Jarrett Liebert

Last Chance 2 Transfers:

1. Landon Cardoza
2. Connor Dudek

FEATURE RACE

Adam Elby led the field to the green with Logan Rumsey alongside. The field stayed clean for the opening laps, but on Lap 7, Rumsey moved around and into the lead. Elby began to free fall from there, nearly wrecking a few laps later. Quick Time lap setter Dylan Yeager was not too lucky having inverted to the middle of the pack, and as a result, he was a part of the opening caution near halfway. He would continue but with heavy damages. 

On the ensuing restart, Shawn English got too close with the tall walls at Knoxville and went for a tumble, bringing out an immediate second caution. This set up a Rumsey versus Tanner Pettit restart, a restart we saw two weeks ago at Lincoln Speedway.

This time, however, Rumsey would not be beaten. Pettit caught the wall after a few laps and fell back to finish seventh. Ryan Avila, who started ninth after having to race in the Heats, moved his way up into the second spot.

Without a caution, however, Rumsey had taken a 1.3-second lead on everyone else, allowing him to claim another victory.

Feature Race results from WORLD OF OUTLAWS PRO SERIES, Race 6 at KNOXVILLE RACEWAY were as follows:

WORLD OF OUTLAWS PRO SERIES Points following Race 6 at KNOXVILLE RACEWAY are as follows:

1. Logan Rumsey, 628
2. Kendal Tucker, 613
3. JD Brown, 548
4. Blake Matjoulis, 503
5. Dylan Yeager, 484
6. Ryan Avila, 468
7. Ethan Johnson, 423
8. Tanner Pettit, 403
9. Mike Augustine, 397
10. James Edens, 372

With Rumsey’s win and Tucker only managing to finish 10th, the points lead swaps back to the former as the season gets ready to swap to the 2025 side of the schedule. JD Brown jumps to third as Blake Matjoulis failed to make the roster this week. Pettit, who has mostly scored points in the Sprint Car ranks, sits eighth, still with an outside shot at the championship with four races to go.

The next race will be back in the 410 Sprint Cars again, this time at the newly-released Huset’s Speedway, with racing scheduled on January 6th.

World of Outlaws Pro Series | Round 6 at Knoxville Raceway | Dirt Sprint Cars

Race #7’s broadcast at Huset’s will once again be live at 8:00 pm ET on that 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.

The Qualifying Series is set to return during 2025 Season 1, Week 3. 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.