By Jacob Hord, @HordRaceWatcher
Third time isn’t the charm, it’s past the weekend and I’m still late and have less money than I did last week.
Friday at Attica: Kicked off the weekend at Attica, as per usual. The Valvoline American Late Model Iron-Man Series started off their season at the ⅓ mile oval. 30 late models battled for a cool $5,000 to win race. Rusty Schlenk may have led all but three laps, and won in dominating fashion, but it was still an exciting race. Both Kyle Moore and Seth Daniels put on a show for second, swapping the position almost every lap, and being side-by-side when they weren’t swapping the second spot. Chalk it up for another win for Schlenk, seems like that’s all he does at Attica.
Cale Thomas scored another Memorial Day weekend win in Attica, his other win coming six years ago with the All Star Circuit of Champions. Jordan Ryan worked his way into the second spot, and would end up as the bridesmaid once again at Attica in the 410s. His day is coming soon there. Over the last two laps, Ryan did take about a second and a half out of Thomas’ lead, but it wasn’t enough. Trey Jacobs, Stuart Brubaker, and Tyler Gunn rounded out the top five.
Dustin Stroup had himself a night in the 305 class. He almost left before the action began due to a panic attack, but it was a good thing he stuck around for both the makeup feature and the regular feature, because he swept them both!
In the makeup feature, Jimmy McGrath Jr and Kasey Ziebold were racing for the lead early, but Stroup was stalking in third. Stroup made some nice moves through lapped traffic and ran away with the makeup feature win.
In the regular feature, it took a couple tries to get the feature going, but once it did get going, it was Brenden Torok who took the early lead, but Jamie Miller came along and snagged it from him on lap seven. Then, Stroup did what has been so hard to do this year; pass Jamie Miller for the lead. Then, he pulled away from Miller enroute to his second win of the night.
DeVault Sweeps Fremont: Before the Outlaws came into town, Fremont Speedway hosted the Double Down Throwdown. Each class qualified, ran a BMain, and then two Features. It was DeVault and Lane Racing who found themself on the frontstretch after the first feature. By virtue of their feature one win, they would be on the pole of feature two. Then, they went out and did the same thing. Won the thing. They scored two $2,000 feature wins, plus a $1,000 bonus for winning both features. It was only a matter of time before the Lane’s and DeVault got into victory lane.
Armstrong’s Duel at Anderson: This race was not on dirt, and it wasn’t in Ohio, but this is my recap and I’ll do what I want. One of the coolest races you’ll ever go to, the Little 500 at Anderson Speedway in Anderson, Indiana was Saturday night on the ¼ mile, high-banked paved oval. As things winded down near lap 500, Dakoda Armstrong appeared to have things under control enroute to his first Little 500 win, but a caution would set up a five lap shootout for the win, putting Caleb Armstrong and Kody Swanson in second and third, right behind Dakoda. D. Armstrong appeared to have the win wrapped up, but as he was coming to the white flag, the caution came out once again, setting up a green-white-checkered finish. Dakoda led lap 499, but on lap 500, slipped up in turns one and two, letting Caleb Armstrong, Dakoda’s cousin, to get a run down the backstretch. Caleb Armstrong used the low line going into turns three and four and stole the win, leading the last half lap, the most important part of the race, and won the Little 500. Go to the Little 500, it’ll be one of the coolest races you ever go to.
Jacobs wins at Wayne County: It was an interesting night at Wayne County on Saturday. Their water truck pump broke, and their backup pump wouldn’t work, either. Plan C did work, but they were behind the eight-ball. The show did go on, though. Lee Jacobs led all 25 laps on his way to his first win of 2024. The race saw a red flag so that they could water the track, but kudos to Wayne County for not throwing in the towel. If there’s a will, there’s a way, seems to be Wayne County’s motto, and well, their announcer’s name is Will.
We Can’t Forget the Outlaws!!!: Oh, right, the World of Outlaws spent Friday and Saturday at Atomic Speedway down in Southern Ohio and Monday at Fremont Speedway. Gosh, there was a lot of racing to cover this weekend. David Gravel scored the win on Friday night over Carson Macedo and Buddy Kofoid. Local Cole Duncan finished fourth. On Saturday, it was Buckeye Sheldon Haudenschild taking the popular win over Kofoid and Macedo. Mr. Consistency Cole Duncan finished fourth once again.
Carson Macedo broke back into the win column on Monday at Fremont, read about it here.
That’s the bulk of things, lets do some QuickHits
There was a lot of carnage at Fremont Monday night. Eleven cars flipped a total of 12 times throughout the night. The track really wasn’t rough as much as it was technical. I personally didn’t see a lot of cars bouncing through the corners. For as much rain that fell on Fremont on Sunday, they were lucky to even get the race in, let alone have a good racing surface.
Cale Thomas is still on Triple Crown watch. After his win at Attica on Friday, and good runs Saturday at Fremont, he still leads the Attica, Fremont, and AFCS points championships as we head into June.
I started typing this article when the FloRacing Late Model Series at Macon started, we’re still working on the feature. I’m a slow typer, but this race has been dynamite. Much like the Indy 500, I should’ve gone to Macon.
On Monday afternoon, DJ Foos’ Burmeister Racing car underwent tech inspection from the Outlaws. They found out that the front clip tubing was too thin, through no fault of their own. The team and others thrashed to take everything out of that car, and into a Rich Farmer spare car hauled in in the late afternoon. Foos would finish the feature in P19.
Ricky Thorton Jr just won the Late Model race I wanted to go to. I’m going to bed.