VanDyke, Wolfe, Ketron, Brown, Austin capture Kingsport Speedway NASCAR victories

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With Kingsport Speedway celebrating its 52nd season of racing, several drivers (among them John A. Utsman, Brad Teague, Paul Lewis, Brownie King, Travis Tiller, Larry Utsman) that raced at the tradition-steeped facility in the Model City through the years gathered Friday for Racers Reunion Night at the Races.

Kres VanDyke of Abingdon, Virginia, captured his fifth NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Late Model Stock Car victory. The 36-year-old did it unlike at any point this season as he elected to work on his car to make changes to the chassis before the feature, which meant he would relinquish his qualifying time (seventh) and have to start from back of the field.

It’s said in racing that besides having a good race car you also need to have “lady luck” on your side. For VanDyke the decision to give up his original qualifying position in order to get his car better dialed-in for the feature, it’s quite possible he caught a lucky break.

Wayne Hale was fastest in qualifying at 15.162 seconds, followed by Adam Gray at 15.183. The top six from qualifying were inverted for start of the feature, putting Robbie Ferguson and Nik Williams on the front row. Two-time track champion Nate Monteith and Zeke Shell occupied the second row, with Gray and Hale in the third row.

Most everybody around racing will tell you that you can’t win the race on the first lap, but you definitely can lose the race on the opening circuit. That soundly resonated with start of the 60-lap main event.

Ferguson and Williams sped off into the first turn on the start at front of the pack, and racing up off (turn) two down the backstretch Monteith made a move getting to inside of Ferguson entering the third turn. You had Monteith on the bottom, Ferguson in the middle and Williams on the high side between turns three and four.

Contact between Monteith and Ferguson created a massive pileup at exit of the fourth turn when they spun directly in front of the tightly jammed field. With the track blocked in front of him, Gray had nowhere to go and took flight climbing up over the driver’s side and across Monteith’s hood, ripping the body panels off Monteith’s ride. Others caught up in the wreck included Williams, Shell, Hale and Joey Trent.

With the red flag thrown for track officials and safety crews to check on drivers and to clean up the carnage, all involved headed for the pits so their pit crews could assess damage. Remarkably, all were able to continue except Gray – with Monteith’s machine minus left side body, hood and front nosepiece, while all others also had body damage. All cars involved in the wreck (than entered the pits to be worked on) had to go to rear of the field for second attempt to start the race.

Remember the earlier statement regarding VanDyke catching a lucky break? Had he started from where he qualified in seventh, he would have been directly involved in the big crash.

Derek Lane and Darin Silver were on the front row for the restart, but lurking behind them in the second row was VanDyke. Lane briefly jumped out into the lead before VanDyke got around him on the second lap.

The caution waved twice early in the race, on lap 5 when David Strong spun between turns three and four and then again on lap 8 when Billy Light looped his ride.

Off the double-file restart following the Light caution period, VanDyke powered back out ahead over Shell, Hale, Lane and Ferguson. Ferguson passed Lane for the fourth spot on lap 9, and two circuits later he worked his way past Hale for third as they raced off the fourth turn.

The race ran caution-free the remaining distance to the finish with VanDyke recording the win over Shell, Ferguson, Hale and Lane. Completing the top 10 finishers were Trent, Silver, Monteith, Strong and Rick Pannell. … However, the results are not official until first of the week. Following post-race technical inspection, VanDyke’s ignition box was kept in order to have it looked at more in-depth.

Alan Rich grabbed lead at the start of the 30-lap Modified Street feature over Jared Broadbent and Kirby Gobble, with Royce Peters, Kevin Wolfe, Paul Shull, Rick Utsman and Dennis Deese all jockeying for position.

Tough luck quickly on lap 4 for point leader Peters when his right-front (brake) rotor broke and, then just two circuits later Rich suddenly slowed on the backstretch and slowly coasted around to the front pit entrance to hand the lead over to Broadbent.

Gobble passed Broadbent for the lead on lap 7, while behind him second generation driver Rusty Clendenin (father, Roger Clendenin raced for 30 years around East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia and is longtime owner of RCR Race Cars & Parts in Church Hill) was having his strongest run of the season (his rookie year in Modified Street) in second, with Wolfe in third.

Gobble stayed out ahead on point to the checkered flag for apparent victory, while Wolfe, from Meadowview, Virginia, passed Clendenin on the white flag lap racing off the second turn down the backstretch for position. That move by Wolfe proved to be for the race win, when Gobble refused to allow track officials to examine his engine during post-race technical inspection.

Wolfe was awarded his second victory on the season, followed by Clendenin, Shull, Utsman and Broadbent.

Week in and week out the “Toyota of Kingsport” Pure 4 division provides big car count with two- and three-wide exciting racing action all back through the field. Since the track reopened for weekly racing in 2011, the Ketron family (father, John, and son, Jason) has captured four divisional championships, with Mark McCrary and Billy Byington also winning titles.

Billy Ketron of Kingsport is hoping to join his father and brother as champions and, through the first five races this season he has three second-place, one third-place, and one fourth-place effort to help his cause. Billy outran his brother Jason to earn the win, with Craig Phelps, Levi Cox and William Hale rounding out the top five finishers. Apparent third-place finisher Chris Neeley did not pass post-race technical inspection when his car weighed light at the scales.  

Billy entered the night of racing tied with Kenny Absher (two wins in 2017) for the points lead, but with Absher uncharacteristically stumbling to a 19th-place finish, and Ketron recording his first victory on the season, he now leads Absher by 18 points on the leaderboard.

Billy outran his brother Jason to earn the win, with Craig Phelps, Levi Cox and William Hale rounding out the top five finishers. Apparent third-place finisher Chris Neeley did not pass post-race technical inspection when his car weighed light at the scales.

David Brown of Abingdon, Virginia, passed Kevin Canter for the lead on lap 6 of the Mod 4 feature and remained out front until the checkered flag waved for his second straight victory. Finishing behind Brown and Canter were Billy Duty, Chris Amburgey and 73-year-old veteran Hershell Robinette. In his quest to repeat as division champion, Canter has four wins and two runner-up finishes through six races to lead the point standings by 22 over Jerry Miller.

Doug Austin of Castlewood, Virginia, captured his division-leading third Pure Street feature win over Jamie Meadows, Jay Swecker, Peter Alley and Bobby Talbert.

KPS PR

Speedway Digest Staff
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