Aaron Turnbull came off the track on Friday believing he had failed to win the season modified championship at Estevan Motor Speedway.
Turnbull's task on championship night was to finish at least five spots ahead of his father, Ed, to make up his deficit in the season standings.
He got it done on his end, taking second place in a tight finish, but he didn't think it was enough.
"When I came in second, I thought he'd be in the top five and he'd still have it locked up," Aaron said. "I had no idea it wasn't till I got to the pit area and asked (Ed) where he finished (that I found out)."
Ed finished eighth in the feature, six spots behind, with some car problems contributing to his fate.
Along with Turnbull winning his second track championship, the other drivers crowned on Friday were Gregg Mann in the stock class and Brandon Beeter in the hobby class.
"It means a lot because it's so tough to do," said Turnbull, who last won it in 2007. "I've been so close so many times since my last one, (finishing) second all the time. It's not easy to do, so it means a lot when you can pull it off. I kinda hated that I had to take it from my dad, I kinda felt bad doing that, but I didn't think he'd be that far back."
Both drivers started the feature well toward the back, in 11th and 12th, and Ed stayed a couple of cars ahead in the early going.
"Going into it, I just assumed he was going to win it. Even if I won (the race), I figured he'd be in the top five," Aaron said. "I was just trying to be patient and make sure I didn't get caught in up any wrecks or anything. I took my time getting up front, and I guess it paid off because my car was still in one piece when I got there."
He added that he was lying low for the first few laps, trying to avoid getting into a crash while the field was still bottlenecked.
Once he made his move, Turnbull worked his way up quickly to sit behind leader and eventual feature winner Kody Scholpp. He said it took a while to get to the top of the track, being stuck on the bottom during restarts.
"I was half a lap behind Kody when I first got up there. Another lap and I might've had him."
Turnbull said he feels he took his racing career to a new level in 2013.
"Winning the (modified) tour and the Estevan tour race and the $3,000 (Fast 40) and all the features that I won, it's definitely been my best year so far," he reflected.
Meanwhile, Mann entered the stock feature with an insurmountable 29-point lead, needing only to start the race and avoid disqualification to take the title.
But instead of playing it safe, Mann went for it and won the feature as well.
"I was getting the gears from my parents, (telling) me I was just going to go out there and hang out at the back and just finish the race, and I said, 'No, that's not the way you go out. I'm going (there) to win just like every other night,'" he laughed.
"All I had to do was start, so if I wreck and spin out, I still got it. So I might as well go for the trophy. That's what we did."
The feature victory bookended the year nicely for Mann, who also won in the season opener on May 4.
Jordan Durward and Rocky Alexander had also been jockeying for the win, but Durward lost control and spun out on the final turn of the race, turning into Alexander's path and creating a collision.
"I saw Jordan throw it in real hard down on (turns) one and two and I thought, 'Wow, he's coming hard,'" Mann said. "I missed my groove on three and four and I was thinking, 'Aw, (expletive), he's going to get me.' But then I saw him out of the corner of my eye starting to turn around and I thought, 'Well, that's not good either.'"
Consistency was key in helping Mann take the stock championship by a whopping 31 points over Dustin Byler. He added that early season rival Joe Flory stopped coming up to Estevan midway through the year and that the standings would have been much tighter otherwise.
It helped that Mann and his crew largely didn't have to worry about his car causing problems.
"We had the car figured out last year. We got it working good for us and I said, 'Well, all we gotta do is continue working on it and improving on this car and we should be good.'"
The hobby stock feature, like most others this year, included a showdown between Brandon and Brock Beeter, with Brandon leading by four points going in.
It turned out their racing partner Brad King hung on for his third win of the year at EMS, edging Brandon by a nose at the finish line. Brock finished third, giving Brandon the season championship by five points.
The Speedway has two special events left on its slate, with the third annual Eve of Destruction on Sept. 13 and the ninth annual enduro race on Sept. 22.
