SARVER, Pa. — On a wild Monday night at virtual Lernerville Speedway, Mike McKinney became the first repeat winner of a World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series iRacing Invitational when he took advantage of a late-race incident and surged to the checkered flag ahead of Ashton Winger and Ethan Toedter.

While McKinney was winning for the second time in three races, he’s been in the mix at nearly every event. But it was Winger, a full-time rookie-of-the-year contender on the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model tour, who had the most impressive run of the night.

Winger earlier finished third at The Dirt Track at Charlotte, but on Monday he had his work cut out for him, having to transfer from the VP Racing Fuels Last Chance Showdown into the feature, where he then earned the Penske Racing Shocks Hard Charger award after motoring from 21st to second in a stunning result.

Winger’s wild night started in heat one, where he gassed it up on the outside pole, but drove off track in the opening laps, leaving him with a fifth-place result and a spot in the Last Chance Showdown, staring at long odds. Rarely in the virtual competitions has a driver come from so far back to nearly win the feature, but Winger’s 19-place improvement was the biggest jump this year — real or simulated.

“I felt like I was pretty fast there, but I kinda did something dumb in that Heat race and drove off the racetrack,” Winger said in the Morton Buildings post-race interview.

When the green flag waved for the feature, things looked much different out front. Kaeden Cornell jumped out to the early lead and showed the way through the first 10 laps before last Wednesday night’s FOX Sports 1 television winner Corey Gordon, in the Drydene No. 0M car, made a great move to Cornell’s outside on a restart to take command.

Chasing the leaders, McKinney and Cornell came together going down the backstretch into turn three and spilled over the edge of Lernerville’s banking, sending both drivers back a few spots. McKinney recovered nicely and made it back to third before the next caution.

Gordon paraded the field around through several restarts over the next 20 laps while holding off multiple challenges by last Monday night’s DIRTVision winner Logan Seavey and McKinney. McKinney showed his strength on the low side after a restart on lap 26, throwing a big slide job on Seavey into turn one to take the spot. But a pivotal lap 31 restart with Gordon and McKinney on the front row quickly changed the scene out front.

As the field prepared to gas it up coming out of turn four, Gordon and Seavey came together, leaving Gordon on his roof by the end of the melee. After a caution for the race officials resetting the lineup, Gordon took the green at the tail end of the field on the restart with nine to go while Seavey restarted fifth.

Meanwhile, Winger had already made his charge from 21st up to ninth before the restart, using the restarts to his advantage, and dove to the very bottom of the track at the onset of the lap-31 jam-up to jump all the way up to third.

When the green flag waved for the final time, Winger went straight for the high side and battled it out side-by-side with Big-Block Modified driver Anthony Perrego, who got spun around with less than five laps remaining, leaving Winger with the second spot in the end. McKinney took charge at the point and smoothly led the field all the way back to the checkers on Lap 50 to collect the $1,000 victory.

“We had a really good car there I feel, with the drama or not,” McKinney said in the Morton Buildings post-race interview. “That restart there, I’m not really sure what happened, just some people playing some mind games there, I guess, with the starts.

“At the end of the day, though, we’re here for fun and have a good show. But we’re all racecar drivers and it doesn’t matter if we’re playing ping-pong, we’re super competitive and going to try and get every edge we can get on each other.”

Despite the stack-up on the lap-31 restart and the unfortunate result for then-leader Gordon, McKinney said he may have had something for Gordon in the final laps had the melee not occurred.

“Right before that yellow, we weren’t running bad,” McKinney said. “I was able to enter in a little bit higher than [Gordon] and get a better run, I felt. So, it would have been interesting to see how it would have played out. I feel bad for him and everybody involved, it’s just a part of iRacing sometimes.”

The finish:

1. 96-Mike McKinney [5][$1,000]; 2. 12-Ashton Winger [21]; 3. 29-Ethan Toedter [10]; 4. 88-Trent Ivey [6]; 5. 2-Nick Hoffman [20]; 6. 39-Kevin Swindell [17]; 7. 5-Chase Briscoe [4]; 8. 1-Logan Seavey [3]; 9. 95-Robbie Kendall [9]; 10. 14-Tyler Clem [19]; 11. 79-Kyle Hardy [8]; 12. 18-Anthony Perrego [11]; 13. 50-Kaeden Cornell [1]; 14. 991-David Seibers [13]; 15. 121-Michael Hensley [23]; 16. 32-Bobby Pierce [14]; 17. 11-Gordy Gundaker [24]; 18. 8-Timothy Culp [18]; 19. 35-Mike Mahaney [16]; 20. 0-Corey Gordon [2]; 21. 99-Matty Watkins [12]; 22. 15-Matt Shannon [22]; 23. 6-Nick Stroupe [7]; 24. 83-Zack Mitchell [15].