Sammy Swindell was victorious for the fourth time this season on the opening night of the American Sprint Car Series Jesse Hockett / Daniel McMillin Memorial at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Missouri, over the weekend.

Swindell passed outside pole sitter Aaron Reutzel for the lead on lap 12 and dominated the final 13 circuits. Reutzel claimed the top spot from the outside pole at the green and thought he had the race in hand.

Reutzel was able to hold his lead for as long as he did by staying true to the dominant top line for the first part of the race. When the top started to lose grip near the halfway mark, Reutzel decided to try the bottom -- and that was the race-losing decision.

"I made a mistake and just got beat," Reutzel said. "We have a fast hot rod right now; the driver just made a mistake."

The blunder cost Reutzel the win, but he was at least able to hold off Wayne Johnson, who ended the night on the bottom step of the podium in third. Johnson was the defending winner of the race, having beaten Swindell last year.

Swindell was happy with his fourth win of the season but thought the team deserved more.

"We've struggled a little bit with getting bumped around and things getting messed up," Swindell said. "We lost our good motor that we had last year and we've finally got this one to where it's rolling pretty good the last few weeks.

"We have a good race car. We just have to get a chance to prove it here. We should have probably had 10 or 12 wins this year, but things have happened. We definitely have a faster car than most of these other guys -- we just have to prove it. Like tonight."

The top five was rounded out by series points leader Sam Hafertepe Jr. and Jason Martin.

Skyler Gee was the hard charger finishing 14th after starting 22nd.

Top-10 Finishers
1. Sammy Swindell
2. Aaron Reutzel
3. Wayne Johnson
4. Sam Hafertepe, Jr.
5. Jason Martin
6. Derek Hagar
7. Johnny Herrera
8. Brad Loyet
9. Jeff Swindell
10. Jonathan Cornell