by Jacob Hord, @HordRaceWatcher
After a four week delay, the green flag finally flew on the 2022 sprint car season in the Buckeye State. The Tezos All Star Circuit of Champions kicked off their points-paying season at Attica Raceway Park, which doubled as Attica’s opener as well. Forty-nine of the Tezos All Stars checked into the ⅓ mile oval in Attica on a windy, gloomy chilly evening. At the end of the night though, it was Sunshine that prevailed.
Defending Attica-All Star opener winner Justin Peck and local Craig Mintz led the field as the green flag flew on the 40 lap feature, with Mintz taking the early advantage over Peck, and “Sunshine” Tyler Courtney. Rookie Scott Bogucki ran fifth but was challenging Sunshine for third on the second lap. On lap three, Peck threw a slider at Mintz in turns three and four, but Mintz held on. Lap four saw the same story, but with a different outcome, as Peck led his first laps of the season.
Peck jumped to a lead of about one second as he approached lapped traffic on laps six and seven. Sunshine was all over Mintz by lap nine as they made their way through the traffic, but the yellow came out for Cory Eliason, who went for a spin in turns three and four to bring out the first caution. On the ensuing restart, Mintz took a shot at Peck in turns one and two, but Peck held on as Courtney was all over Mintz once again for the second spot.
On lap 10, Sunshine made his move on Mintz and claimed the second spot, setting his sights on Peck who maintained a steady one second lead. Peck was in traffic once again by lap 15, which allowed the defending All Star champion to close in. Sunshine wasn’t as lucky as Peck with traffic in the coming laps, as Peck stretched his lead back out to about a second at the halfway point. Bogucki had taken over the third spot from Mintz, as well.
Three laps later, Courtney found himself closing in on Peck once again, as Mintz and Zeb Wise both made their way by Bogucki. Courtney found himself just a couple car lengths back of Peck on lap 25, as Wise challenged Mintz for the third spot. Action came to a halt for a second time though, as Stuart Brubaker went around in turns one and two, bringing out the second caution on lap 27.
“It was just about managing,” Courtney said. “[Peck] got away from us a little, and then we got a yellow and I got a good restart and started to slide him.
This is where things got good. The second restart of the race saw Sunshine take his shot at Peck in turns one and two with a slider. Peck was able to power by Sunshine down the backstretch and hold onto the lead. The next lap, lap 28, saw the same thing happen. Peck was just too good off of turn two. As Mintz and Wise battled for third on lap 29, Peck and Courtney were still waging war for the lead. Coming out of turn four, Peck, who was leading, ended up doing a 360 in front of the field. Luckily, no one else was collected and Peck was able to rejoin at the tail of the lead lap cars.
“The situation looked a lot worse than what it was,” said Courtney of Peck’s caution. “When I got to him, he kind of slid off the track so it looked like I drove through him. On my end, we didn’t even make contact. I have all the respect in the world for Justin, Sean, Curtis and Tom Buch.”
“Those guys are competitive and we’re going to have to race them night in and night out. I didn’t want it to come to that. I feel like we were the two best cars, it sucks. That’s racing, we’ll go on to tomorrow and we’ll probably be in the same heat tomorrow. That’s just how racing goes,” continued Courtney.
This put Courtney in the lead, as he could start to smell his 10th career All Star win. Courtney got a whale of a restart and blew away from Mintz, as Greg Wilson claimed third from Wise. Sunshine rocketed out to a near two second lead over Mintz and Wilson, who started to spat for second. The final caution came out on lap 36, as Wise had a flat right rear tire. This set up a four lap shootout for the win. Luckily for Courtney, he had another great restart as Mintz and Wilson were figuring out who would come home second. Courtney took the checkered flag for his tenth All Star win, at his ninth different track. Greg Wilson was able to stay ahead of Mintz for second.
“I watched both those guys [Wilson and Mintz] win a lot of races not only here, but all over the state of Ohio. They’re stout, they’re wiley veterans. You always see the 97 or the W20 creep around the bottom, so I kept waiting to see a yellow car pop underneath me. I feel like we had a really good car, I just had to keep hitting my marks because you never know with two good guys like that sitting behind you,” said Courtney.
“You don’t know where the track’s going to go when you’re leading, so you’re kind of a sitting duck, but luckily, it worked out tonight,” the race-winner said.
For Courtney, this was the best way possible to kick off his All Star title defense: “You have to have a good start to get rolling. Tonight was definitely one of those nights. As we go on, I hope we can carry the momentum to start the summer and carry it throughout,” Courtney said as sprinkles fell from the sky.