ATTICA, Ohio — Ryan Missler defended the home turf Friday at Attica Raceway Park.
The Bellevue, Ohio, driver — a five time Attica track champion — scored the biggest win of his career, besting the American Ethanol Late Model Tour to nab the $4,000 payday in the Buckeye 40 on Stillwater Metal/Bazell Race Fuels Night.
Missler battled with Doug Drown early in the 40-lap affair and then had to deal with Greg Satterlee as well later on. With 14 laps to go, Missler used lapped cars to his advantage and charged from third to first and drove to his 14th career victory at Attica, placing him in a three way tie for third on the track’s all-time win list for the UMP late models.
“After the restart (on lap 13) I thought, ‘Oh crap the car isn’t firing the way it was before.’ But as the laps went on the car kept getting better and better and better and I was so comfortable in that thing…it was awesome. The car just picked where it wanted to go and it was good anywhere I wanted to put it. I have to thank all my guys. Matt Carmody for putting this thing together…it’s his birthday and his wife’s birthday on the same day…how about that for a present? This is the biggest race I’ve ever won. We’ve only ever won a $2,000 to win race. We defended our home turf,” said Missler.
Satterlee would hold off Drown for the runner-up finish, though blaming himself for “making too many mistakes.”
“Drown and Missler were both really good. I just made too many mistakes. Drown pushed off the corner there once and needed to take advantage and had made a bad corner myself and I let him get back by me. I got to where I was hanging at the end and just couldn’t go near as hard as I could the first 25 laps. It’s a step in the right direction. We haven’t had a real good season so far. It was a lot of fun and and an awesome race track tonight,” said Satterlee.
Drown came home third.
“I just cruised too long. I was looking over my shoulder and saw them and they were down on the bottom and normally on the bottom you will wear out a tire so I was just cruising. Ryan had a good car and could maneuver anywhere,” said Drown.
Kyle Capodice was in the right place at the right time to capitalize when early race contenders suffered mechanical woes in the Fremont Fence 305 sprint feature. For much of the 25 laps main event it looked like the race would come down to Jamie Miller or Kyle Peters but first Peters retired with mechanical problems and then Miller suffered the same fate with just six laps remaining and Capodice drove to the win, the fourth of his career at Attica.
“We were better on the long runs and I just really wanted to win. We went through a drought last year and I can’t thank Franlin Sanitation, Greber Racing Components, Barnes Nursery, Fred Wolf, Rob Butts and Lynette Lawless, Burns Electric, my fiancee Kylie, my Dad and Tyler Crump who isn’t here tonight because he just became a dad,” said Capodice.
Shawn Valenti knows a great race vehicle when he drives one and his dirt truck was unstoppable at Attica as he drove to a dominating feature win, the 16th of his career in the division at the track.
The finish:
Feature (40 laps):Â 1. 50-Ryan Missler[2] ; 2. 22-Gregg Satterlee[7] ; 3. 12-Doug Drown[1] ; 4. M14-Brandon Thirlby[11] ; 5. 51-Devin Shields[8] ; 6. 17-Zack Dohm[5] ; 7. 5M-Ryan Markham[10] ; 8. 87M-David Mielke[6] ; 9. 77-Steve Kestter[3] ; 10. 27-Eric Spangler[14] ; 11. CJ1-Rusty Schlenk[15] ; 12. 21B-Rich Bell[17] ; 13. 2S-Travis Stemler[20] ; 14. 21A-Logan Arntz[21] ; 15. RH21-Gregg Haskell[9] ; 16. X3-Dan Wallace[13] ; 17. 44-Matt Shipley[4] ; 18. 79-Nick Kurtz[19] ; 19. C9-Steve Casebolt[16] ; 20. 42-Chad Finley[12] ; 21. 36-Matt Irey[18]