Lehighton’s Joe Mooney has turned enough wrenches over the years to know a weekend at the racetrack rarely goes according to script. But that thrill is a big part of his job as Macri Motorsports’ crew chief. In fact, unpredictability might be the only constant in the sprint car world.

Despite decades of experience, Mooney never lived through a finish quite like the one that decided this year’s Kings Royal on Saturday at Eldora Speedway in Ohio.

One week after helping star driver Anthony Macri clinch a fourth straight Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek title — fresh off a 12-week layoff — the crew was back on the road to defend one of the most coveted crowns in all of dirt-track racing.

Forty laps stood between them and earning another $200,000 crown. Much easier said than done, of course.

By the end of the night, the 39M team survived two late stoppages and a green–white–checkered finish to defend their title and carve out a second straight win in one of the sport’s most decorated events.

Late-Race Pandemonium

The admission price was worth every penny Saturday night as the tandem of Macri and Mooney were in the thick of chaos until the end. The Kings Royal never seems to disappoint.

Macri charged his way into second place with seven laps left and finally looked like he’d broken loose. Mooney watched from above as his driver found a line that worked and started tracking down the leader.

“We had just gotten back to second,” Mooney said. “He really found a line that was working for him and got his wing back… Honestly, I feel pretty confident that if the caution doesn’t come out with seven to go, [we] probably win anyway.”

That first late yellow erased the gap and set up a restart with seven laps left. In Mooney’s mind, they would have had enough time — and enough car — to get it done under green.

“I felt like we were going to charge and get there anyway and restarts could be kind of crazy there,” he said. “You don’t really know what was going to happen, but it worked out.”

The second stoppage is the one that turned the race on its head.

Another car, low on fuel, couldn’t quite make it back and slowed trying to get off the racetrack. That’s when the yellow lights flashed again — essentially as Macri was coming off turn four, about to take the checkered in the 43rd running of the Kings Royal, a crown-jewel race that now pays $200,000 to the winner.

“It was all but coming off turn four when the caution came out,” Mooney said. “I almost didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it.”

Because of the laps already logged, that yellow also pushed the race over a preset limit that officials had laid out in the drivers’ meeting.

“Basically there’s a predetermined total number of laps between pace laps, caution laps, green flag laps,” Mooney explained. “If they get to a point where the race can’t be completed by that number of laps, they’ll do a fuel stop.”

That’s exactly what happened. The second caution brought out an open red for fuel and quick service. A scheduled 40-lap Kings Royal became a green–white–checkered finish.

One Conversation,

Two “Normal” Laps

The open red allowed Mooney to chat with his driver with the race on the line.

“I think that was the most important part,” Mooney said. “To just instill the confidence in him that we were going to be fine and he just had to go out there and run two normal laps, and we’d get it done.”

On the restart, the instructions were simple: get a clean launch, protect the slider line into one and two, and stick with the lane that had carried him forward in the first place.

“I really felt like the part of the track that he was using, the line and the speed we had there, that as long as we got a clean launch we were fine,” Mooney added.

Macri nailed the restart.

The two “normal laps” Mooney asked for turned into another Kings Royal title and six-figure payday at Eldora for the second consecutive year. With the checkered flag, Macri became just the second driver in Kings Royal history to win the race in back-to-back years.

Threading The

“Wheel of Misfortune”

The finish alone would have been a story. The way they got there only adds to it.

The Kings Royal format is designed to keep teams uncomfortable. After qualifying, the “wheel of misfortune” comes out. The quick-time qualifier spins, and the wheel determines the heat-race invert: zero, four, or six.

On this night, track conditions at the start of the program were far from normal. Officials bumped the show up earlier than usual to try to beat incoming storms, which left the racing surface tricky for time trials and made pill draw even more important.

“It made qualifying quite a challenge, especially if you drew a late pill,” Mooney said.

Macri and Mooney landed somewhere in the middle of the draw. They didn’t pull a perfect number, but they didn’t get buried either. The inversion landed on four, and Macri’s qualifying time — in the high teens — put him on the front row of his heat.

The stakes in that heat race were enormous. Under the Kings Royal format, winning your heat can be the difference between controlling your own night and having to slice through traffic.

“If we wouldn’t have won our heat race, if we would have finished second, we would’ve started 12th. So the heat race was huge.”

They didn’t leave anything to chance. Macri jumped out, checked out and won the heat “very handily,” in Mooney’s words — basically unchallenged from the drop of the green. It was their first big box checked.

“That was a good confidence booster, and we felt good about where we were at.”

Solving A Moving Target

Have you ever solved a Rubik’s Cube? That’s what it’s like sometimes for race teams. Figuring out what works best for a racecar on a given night can give even the best puzzle-solvers fits.

“Honestly, the first three nights were kind of a letdown,” Mooney admitted.

Mooney said they had speed in the car, but he didn’t feel like the overall package met their usual standard. On one of those nights, he threw a big swing in the feature — knowing full well it could go either way.

“It was either going to be really good or really bad,” he said. “And it turned out really bad, but I felt pretty confident that I knew what I was missing with the kind of package that I threw at it looking back on it.”

That miss helped frame the direction for the final night. The car they unloaded for the Kings Royal win wasn’t a copy of last year’s package, but it wasn’t a complete departure, either, Mooney explained.

“I wouldn’t say our package that we won with last night was greatly different than last year, but it certainly wasn’t the same,” Mooney said. “You’re always chasing. Tires are a big variable in this game… It’s always a moving target.”

No Time To Exhale

In the span of about two weeks, Macri and Mooney have checked off back-to-back goals most teams would be thrilled to hit once in a career: a fourth consecutive Pennsylvania Speedweek title and a second straight Kings Royal victory.

“We just want to keep the ball rolling,” Mooney said. “We got the race for $25,000 again on Tuesday, and then next Sunday is another six-figure payday up for grabs. Tuesday’s out near Pittsburgh, and then Sunday is at Port Royal, which is one of our home tracks – it’s always a big one.”

The mindset stays the same, whether they’re struggling on a Thursday or sealing another crown on a Saturday.

“I try to not let the highs get too high, or the lows get too low because you’re always on a rollercoaster,” Mooney said. “You can’t get complacent even when you’re on top. And when you struggle, you can’t get down because you do, you’re just going to stay there.”