By Jacob Hord, @HordRaceWatcher
Jordan Ryan and the MAR Motorsports team have been knocking on the door of a big win. Unfortunately, most of their knocking is met with a door that won’t open. That changed Monday night, night four of Ohio Speedweek at Wayne County Speedway.
Things started out well for Ryan, as he won his heat race, making him eligible for the feature redraw. Luck was on Ryan’s side, as he drew the number two, so he’d start on the outside of row one for the 30 lap, $5,000 Feature event.
Tyler Gunn got a good start as the green flag flew, but the yellow immediately came out for Tim Shaffer coasting to a stop on the front stretch with a flat right rear tire. We’d try it again, this time it was Ryan who got the jump on Gunn and took the lead down the backstretch. Cale Thomas made his way into third. The yellow came out soon, this time for Aussie Brock Hallett spinning down the backstretch. Good job to everyone on avoiding him, that could’ve been bad.
Ryan took advantage of the restart, but by lap four, Gunn was reeling in the leader. Gunn made it to Ryan’s tail tank going into turns one and two, but would wallop the wall in turns one and two, breaking the shock mount off the frame, ending Gunn’s night. The caution would come out.
This moved Cale Thomas into second, followed by Travis Philo, Brandon Spithaler and Darin Naida. Thomas took a peak under Ryan on the restart, but Ryan was too good on the top and maintained the lead. By lap ten, Ryan’s lead was up to 1.2 seconds over Thomas. It only took two laps though for Thomas to get the lead back down to half a second. At the halfway point, the lead was back up to .825 seconds, and Philo would make a move on Thomas for second.
The red came flag flew on lap 16 as Jake Hesson got upside down in turns one and two. Ryan would have to endure one more restart. That’s what he did. Zane DeVault made his way into third on that restart and locked in on Philo in second, as Ryan gapped them by 1.128 seconds with ten circuits remaining. As the laps ticked down, Ryan would put about a tenth of a second between himself and Philo, as Philo had his hands full with DeVault.
With two laps left, DeVault got second from Philo. DeVault made up over a second on Ryan, but the sand ran out of the hourglass, and Jordan Ryan found himself in victory lane, the newest member of the Ohio Speedweek Winners Club.
“It’s the biggest [win] of my life. I just told my car owner that I’m stopping this year. Retired. We done,” Ryan said with a laugh. “It was awesome man. I thought we’d get the lead early and we had a good car underneath us. I just figured it would die out, and it was in traffic. I was actually missing my marks so bad because I couldn’t see where I needed to be on the track. Those restarts were helping me a ton to stay in clean air.”
“On that last red TJ Michael, my dad, Matt, everyone down there was telling me to stay up, and that’s what I did. I could start to see a nose wing once I got into dirty air. The more and more I got the wing back, I could turn off four and make my straightaway longer, point it down, let the tires spin a little bit and launch down into the moisture. It was one of those nights that worked out perfect,” said Ryan.
Jordan Ryan’s full interview can be found here:
Zane DeVault’s full interview can be found here: