Muskegon, MI - Chase Ridenour took the checkered flags for his first feature win of the 2017 season at Thunderbird Raceway Saturday night! That gives Ridenour 2 A-Main wins in a row at Thunderbird, with his first coming last season on August, 13, 2016.
Day two of the I-96 Corridor Challenge between the NCRA Great Lakes Super Sprints and the K&L Ready Mix NRA Sprint Invaders started out with clear blue skies and 16 of the 25 cars from the night before rolling into the pits at Thunderbird. With 5 additional cars rolling in, our field of 21 cars was set and ready to take on the 1/3 mile, semi banked track of Thunderbird Raceway.
Visiting for his first time and running with GLSS was Andrew Scheid of Sparta, MI. Scheid is in his first year of running a full size sprint car at only 13 years old and will start the 8th grade this fall. Scheid won the 2016 Lightning Sprints Championship at Merritt Speedway and has 24 feature wins to his credit. Starting out in karts, he had 88 wins and 3 championships under his belt. 2017 will be his transition year into full size sprints.
Scheid definitely jumped into the frying pan Saturday night, with the reigning NRA Champion, Jared Horstman, the reigning GLSS champion Ridenour, Dustin Daggett, Phil Gressman and Gregg Dalman present as well as five other top points getters from GLSS and NRA.
Promptly at 5:30, the first 3 sprints were pushed on the track for the start of group qualifying. The track proved to be fast, with Horstman posting the fast time of 12.124 seconds, only .024 seconds off the record set by Daggett last year at 12.1 seconds. Ridenour posted a 12.13 and Devon Dobie posted a 12.134 seconds! Daggett and Dalman rounded out the top five qualifyers.
The first heat race of the night was lead out by Mike Dunlap (Wapakoneta, OH) and Linden Jones (Edwardsburg, MI) on the front row, with the track record holder, Daggett, and the fast qualifier Horstman in the second row. As the green flag dropped, Jones was on a mission. He jumped out to the early lead and made the rest of the field chase him down. With the field on his heels and clean air in front of him, Jones rode the rail to the checkered flag. Followed by Dunlap, Daggett, Horstman, Mike Astrauskas (Pierson, MI), Tyler Bearden (Onsted, MI) and Ralph Brakenberry (Pigeon, MI) DNF.
New comer Scheid and Matt Foos (Fremont, OH) brought the second heat out on the track, with Dalman, Ridenour, Joe Geibe (Sturgis, MI), D.J. Lamance (Delton, MI) and Tanner Astrauskas (Pierson, MI) rounding out the field. Dialed in, Ridenour quickly made his way around Foos and Scheid taking the lead. Dalman got around Scheid in lap 2 for 3rd and that's how the group would finish with Ridenour taking the checkered flag, then Foos, Dalman, Scheid, Geibe, Lamance and Astrauskas.
Robert Huisken (Marne, MI) and Kyle Poortenga (Woodland, MI) led the final heat race on the track followed by Gressman and Devon Dobie (Wapakoneta, OH) in the 2nd row and Noah Dunlap (Wapakoneta, OH), Tank Brakenberry (Pigeon, MI) and Eric Smith (Lakeview, MI) rounding out the field. Gressman was leading by the time he rounded the first lap. Huisken held on to 2nd till the 3rd lap when Poortenga got around him and then Dobie slid by Huisken in the 6th lap. At the checkered flag, it went Gressman, Poortenga, Dobie, Huisken, Dunlap and Brakenberry.
At the GLSS trailer the top two finishers from each heat race re-drew, with the fastest qualifier of that group drawing first. After the redraw the field was set with Gressman and Ridenour on the front row, Foos, Jones, Dunlap and Poortenga rounding out rows 2 and 3.
The field of 21 cars were pushed on the track for the feature and simultaneously pushed off, firing all cars in about a minute and 15 seconds. Once the cars formed up in their starting positions, Scheid and Huisken pulled to the outside and led their rows to the front for our 4-wide salute to the fans at Thunderbird Raceway and a thank you for coming out! The fans responded on their feet with clapping and cheering as the front row of Scheid, Gressman, Ridenour and Huisken led the cars in front of the grand stands.
With the festivities over, it was time for business as the green flag dropped and Ridenour was quickly in front posting the fastest time recorded by any car at Thunderbird of 11.83 seconds in his second lap or 101.327 mph! The 11R car was on a rail and the obvious car to beat early. Four laps in, Gressman got up over the cushion in turns 1 and 2 and bumped the wall causing a flat and damage to the jacob's ladder, but was able to leave the track under power.
The restart had Ridenour, Foos, Jones, Daggett and Dunlap in the top five positions. In lap 7, Jones finally got a move on Foos and took the 2nd spot. With his sights on Ridenour, Jones pressed hard, but going into turn 1 high, he couldn't hold and jumped the cushion and hit hard at the top of turn 2 and was done for the night.
As the laps clicked off, Ridenour continued to weave his way through traffic. Behind him and working his way up from 10th place was hard charger Horstman. Horstman had worked his way up to 4th in the 14th lap, but couldn't make any progress against the front 3. Then on a hard push and fighting thru lap traffic, Horstman made it past Foos in lap 23 and in lap 24 as Daggett got picked behind a lapped car, Horstman cruised into 2nd but couldn't catch Ridenour who took the checkered flag.
Thank you to Thunderbird Raceway for a good track, in spite of the heavy rains we received on Thursday night and Friday. We're looking forward to our next and last visit of the 2017 season on August 26th.
Our next race will be this Friday at Limaland Raceway Park, kicking off the "Week of Speed" followed by Fremont Speedway on July 1st, Atomic Speedway on July 2nd and ending up with the $4,000 to win on Monday, July 3rd at Waynesfield Raceway Park. With the addition of a 4 day points fund by Dancer Logistics, that brings up our nightly purse to $13,000.00. Saturday at Fremont and Monday at Waynesfield will be all sprint cars, so if you need to get your sprint car fix, come out and watch us and the best drivers in the region compete!
- Barry Marlow on Jun 26, 2017
- Article Date: 6/24/2017 by Barry M. Marlow