PORT ROYAL, Pa. (Aug. 17) — Mason Zeigler of Chalk Hill, Pa., knew exactly what he needed to do if he was going to win Saturday night’s 40-lap World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series feature at Port Royal Speedway.

In simple terms: Get up on the wheel and toss his car around the sprawling half-mile oval’s cushion with all the gusto he could muster.

After ceding the lead to WoO rookie Ricky Weiss of Headingley, Manitoba, on lap 30, Zeigler was out of any other options.

“The only chance I had was running the top,” said Zeigler, who did just that during the race’s late stages to pull out his first-ever WoO triumph in dramatic, down-to-the-wire fashion.

Racing just two days before his 27th birthday, Zeigler ran down Weiss and squeezed between the Canadian’s car and the outside wall off turn four to surge back into the lead as lap 38 was scored. Zeigler pulled away over the remaining circuits in his family-owned XR1 Rocket to cross the finish line 1.429 seconds ahead of Weiss’s Bloomquist Race Car, denying the first-year national touring series traveler his coveted first career WoO victory once again.

Runaway WoO points leader Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., finished a relatively quiet third in the Rocket Chassis house car. The race’s fourth starter moved past fellow WoO regular Shane Clanton of Zebulon, Ga., for the final podium spot on lap three and stayed there to the checkered flag, never seriously challenging Zeigler nor Weiss while spending the bulk of his time fending off Clanton’s bids to regain third place.

Clanton settled for a fourth-place finish in his Greg Bruening-owned Capital machine after starting fifth. Seventh-starter Rick Eckert of York, Pa., who scored an unsanctioned $5,000 win at Port Royal on May 26, slipped his self-owned XR1 Rocket past Chase Junghans of Manhattan, Kan., for fifth place on lap 32 and held strong there to the finish to complete the top five.

The victory was Mission Accomplished for Zeigler, who had plenty of incentive pushing him to the race’s $10,000 winner’s prize.

“I told these guys before we went out, ‘We gotta keep this one in PA,’” said Zeigler, who won his first-ever Port Royal feature earlier this year, on May 26, in an unsanctioned $5,000 A-main that was held over by rain from the previous night. “We got a lot of laps around this place and I love coming here. It’s basically become like our home track, so it’s pretty cool to get our first Outlaw win here.”

What’s more, Zeigler couldn’t forget his disappointing outing just 24 hours earlier in Friday night’s WoO stop at Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsburg, Pa. He made a strong advance from the 17th starting spot to fifth place by lap 24 of the 40-lap headliner but slipped over the cushion just before the race’s final caution flag flew on lap 33 and tumbled to an 11th-place finish.

“We struggled last night, had some fuel issues all night, and were able to rebound and come back up to the front in that feature,” Zeigler related. “(The cushion) bit us. I got up behind (Gregg) Satterlee there (to bid for fourth place) and actually lifted because I didn’t want to get up on his outside before he knew I was there … and when I lifted it jumped the cushion and I gave up a nice third- or fourth-place run I think we could’ve had.

“I threw it away for my crew,” he continued. “I’m just happy tonight to rebound and earn a little bit of respect back. I owed ‘em this win.”

Zeigler certainly dug hard to gain his redemption. He had to rally twice at Port Royal, first after his run as leader off the pole position for the feature’s first 16 laps ended when he stumbled behind a lapped car in turn one and was overtaken by Weiss on lap 17 and then again after his second stint as the pacesetter lasted only for laps 25-29.

While Zeigler assessed that Weiss likely had the better performing car, he was able to make up the difference by racing aggressively around the track’s extreme outside lane. The tactic nearly proved disastrous on lap 37 when Zeigler’s slider on Weiss through turns one and two carried him into the thick cushion piled against the outside wall off the second corner, but, with only right-rear bodywork damage resulting from the hit, Zeigler maintained control and was able to make his winning move on Weiss moments later exiting turn four.

“Hat's off Weiss’s crew,” Zeigler said. “I’ll tell you what, his car must have been good because I was just absolutely out of control on that cushion and he could stay right underneath me the whole time. His car just rotated a little better than mine.

“The thing was just so inconsistent when I’d try to run through the middle and the bottom. I’d bottom out and I’d push, and we were so tight. But I was pretty dang good on that cushion.”

Weiss, 30, was impressed by Zeigler’s high-side acumen.

“When I got to the lead (on lap 30 following the race’s only caution flag two circuits earlier) I thought, Well, maybe I can run up top here,” said Weiss, who started from the outside pole. “Then (crew chief Shawn Gage was) trying to calm me down so I went back to the middle and Ziggy got around me (on lap 37). Then he put ‘er in the wall over there (off turn tow) and drove off of it. I gave him just enough room (in turn four heading to score lap 38) that if he was gonna drive around me I was gonna make him work for it, and he did just that. So hat’s off to him. He ran a helluva race.”

Weiss had visions of his coveted first WoO triumph dancing through his head after his decision to take the outside line in the Delaware double-file restart on lap 28 helped propel him past Zeigler for the lead.

“I knew Sheppard was good up top and I knew that if I got momentum I could kind of lean up there,” Weiss said. “I was actually entering turn one a little bit higher and cutting across, which I knew I couldn’t do that if Sheppard was on the bottom. But I figured if I could get enough momentum (restarting on the outside), I knew Ziggy would go up top (entering turn one) and maybe I could cut across him.

“It paid off, but just couldn’t hold him off enough.”

Weiss was upbeat, however, after coming so close to victory yet again on the WoO tour. His battle with Zeigler was too good for him to spend time pouting after the race.

“I knew he would run me real clean,” Weiss said of Zeigler. “When I’d throw a slide-job I’d clear him and make sure there was enough room for him to turn back off, and he’d give me the same respect. It was real fun racing.”

Notes: Zeigler became the second driver to win a WoO feature for the first time this season, joining Ross Bailes of Clover, S.C., who scored his first WoO checkered flag on May 3 at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C. He’s the 85th driver to win a WoO A-main in the tour’s history. … Zeigler also is the 48th driver to own victories on both the WoO Series and Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. His Lucas Oil triumph came in the 2016 Winternationals finale at East Bay Raceway Park in Gibsonton, Fla. … Sheppard registered his 29th top-five finish in 31 WoO events this season but said his hopes of dealing with Zeigler and Weiss were hampered by his car “lacking a little coming off the corner on the top.” … The feature’s lone caution flag, on lap 28, was displayed after Trever Feathers of Winchester, Va., slapped the turn-three wall, damaging the nose of his car.