By NICK SCHWIEN

nschwien@dailynews.net

The wait might have seemed agonizing.

But the end result was quite the opposite.

That's what Saturday night's races at RPM Speedway in Hays came down to for modified driver Jeremy Zorn.

The Russell racer jumped to the lead early, then outlasted the field through four cautions en route to the feature win.

"It's kind of nerve-racking because you don't know if somebody behind is using a higher line," Zorn said. "You don't want to try it, and the bottom seemed to be working. ... With all the cautions, I didn't know if I would be able to hold them off."

The Fall Nationals were scheduled for Friday and Saturday at RPM, but rain washed out the Friday events. Track officials made Saturday's races just part of the regular schedule and rescheduled the two-day Fall Nationals with a larger payout for Oct. 10 and 11 in Hays.

Zorn was one of more than 50 modified drivers to make the races. But the field was whittled down to 20 after heat races and two B-mains.

Zorn, starting inside the second row, jumped to the lead early and distanced himself from the pack. He worked the bottom line around the corners to build a sizable cushion until the first yellow flag flew.

"I had a pretty decent starting spot," Zorn said. "I changed my rear-end setup and didn't really know what my car was going to do."

That bunched the field back up, allowing Matt Rucker, Eddie Martin and Jerry Phillips to come within striking distance.

That order would stay basically the same through the next three cautions, and on every restart, Zorn stuck low and kept the lead.

"It was kinda like last year; the track was similar to what it was last year," said Zorn, who won last year's Fall Nationals and pocketed $5,000. "I was sticking to the bottom. ... I figured one of those out-of-state guys was behind me, or (David) Murray. I was just hoping I would hold them off. And I was sick of cautions."

One of those out-of-state guys, Martin, was on his heels. But Martin never could muster enough of a run to get by Zorn.

"We started so far back, and we passed a lot of cars low," said Martin, who started inside row four. "The cars I passed were running the middle up. I kept catfishing around, running the bottom. I was going to run third. I thought, 'Well, hero or zero it.' Then I got past the third-place car. It kind of worked with Zorn, but he's too good of a driver to mess up. I really needed him to get loose or something."

Martin finished second but was left wondering what might have been.

"I wished I would have moved up to where I could have pressured him because he was out by himself and nobody was pressuring him," he said. "When you can pressure someone, maybe they get their car loose and hit the hole a little harder and start to push. I would have liked to be up there a little quicker."

Rucker finished third and was counting on Zorn to use up his tires to allow the chasers a bit of a chance.

"I was waiting," Rucker said. "I was going to try to chase him down, and I really thought he'd use his tires up. So I just let him go, thinking we'd have a caution before long to bunch us back up and he'd have his tires used up and I'd drive right by him. It just didn't work out that way. That was my plan, but it just didn't work out."

Zorn held off the field in the end, slowly distancing himself for the win. The only regret was it wasn't the second night of the Fall Nationals -- and the $5,000 payout.

"This is a good weekend," Zorn said. "I wish it would have been the big money."