KELLYVILLE, Okla. — Win or lose, Johnny Kent has had better days behind the wheel of a sprint car.
It was all Kent could do to climb behind the wheel of his winged sprint car for Saturdays AmeriFlex / OCRS IMCA Sprint Car feature at Creek County Speedway. Apparently his lunch did not agree with him and Kent became sick.
“Yes, we did not feel good for sure,” said Kent after winning Saturdays 30-lap feature. “I had some bad pizza for lunch apparently and I spent the evening puking.”
Despite not feeling 100 percent Kent went the distance to become the seventh different winner this season.
Kent was able to start on the pole after scheduled front row starter Noah Harris was late for the lineup and started on the rear.
“We got a break with Noah (Harris) having issues and started on the pole,” Kent said.
“Car was great, just knew we had to hold them off on the restarts. You can’t give those guys that many shots at you, but it worked out and we caught lapped traffic at the right time.”
Corey McGehee chased Kent the first two laps before giving way to former champion Zach Chappell. But on lap five the red flag waved after Chappell hit the turn-three wall and flipped. Chappell was not hurt, but could not restart the race.
Danny Smith, who started eighth, restarted in second behind Kent and for the next 15 laps followed Kent around the Creek quarter-mile oval. The two would run low in turns one and two and high in three and four.
Smith could not close the gap and finished 1.648 seconds behind Kent. Rees Moran ran third ahead of Rees Moran in third, series points leader Blake Edwards finished fourth and Casey Wills earned the D&G Contracting Hard Charger award after advancing 12 positions to finish fifth.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 55-Johnny Kent[3]; 2. 5$-Danny Smith[8]; 3. 22M-Rees Moran[11]; 4. 17E-Blake Edwards[15]; 5. 31-Casey Wills[17]; 6. 20S-Sheldon Barksdale[4]; 7. 38-Jimmy Forrester[16]; 8. 77-Dean Drake Jr[5]; 9. 26M-Fred Mattox[14]; 10. 777-Bailey Hughes[13]; 11. 29L-Lane Goodman[12]; 12. 69-Greg York[20]; 13. 20-Shawn Wicker[10]; 14. 77H-Jared Higgins[18]; 15. 55M-Corey McGehee[2]; 16. 45-Luke May[19]; 17. 50Z-Zach Chappell[7]; 18. 88-Terry Easum[9]; 19. 22-Kyle Clark[6]; 20. (DNF) 7F-Noah Harris[1]