ORRVILLE, Ohio — It was an elbows-up evening in the Buckeye State for the Tezos All Star Circuit of Champions presented by Mobil 1, as round four of Ohio Sprint Speedweek presented by Cometic Gasket took to a heavily-saturated Wayne County Speedway.
Despite receiving an inch of overnight rain, the show went on as scheduled with “Sunshine” Tyler Courtney earning the $10,000 Duffy Smith Memorial prize.
The Speedweek triumph was Courtney’s first of the series, simultaneously bumping his season victory tally to five, as well as 21 for his career.
Courtney, ace of the Clauson Marshall Racing/NOS Energy Drink No. 7bc, started third on the 25-lap grid, using traffic to power beyond Cole Macedo for second on lap eight, all before pouncing on race leader Cap Henry on lap nine.
Choppy track conditions as the result of heavy rain left much of the racing surface not for the faint of heart, but Courtney powered through, utilizing the very bottom of the speedway for much of his campaign while avoiding rougher patches.
“We just tried to stay as free as we could. I think we were a little too free, but I’m not sure you could be too free on a surface like this,” Courtney said. “Just hats off to everyone here at Wayne County Speedway, and a special thanks to all of the fans for coming out and sticking through this. A lot of guys were unsure about tonight, but someone had to leave here with $10,000 … it may as well be us.”
Doing everything he could to keep Courtney in range, Henry crossed the line in second, followed by Ricky Peterson, who earned a first All Star podium finish. Local hot shoe Trey Jacobs and early race leader Macedo completed the top five.
“I knew the bottom was where I needed to be,” Courtney added. “I knew if I could keep myself on the bottom, if anyone wanted to get around me, they were going to have to go above me.”
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 7BC-Tyler Courtney[3]; 2. 33W-Cap Henry[4]; 3. 2-Ricky Peterson[14]; 4. 9-Trey Jacobs[12]; 5. 29M-Cole Macedo[1]; 6. 23-Zeth Sabo[9]; 7. 91-Tyler Gunn[5]; 8. 5T-Travis Philo[2]; 9. 4-Chris Windom[17]; 10. 55-Michael Kofoid[7]; 11. 45-Tim Shaffer[20]; 12. 19-Sean Rayhall[11]; 13. 22-Brandon Spithaler[21]; 14. (DNF) 97-JJ Hickle[19]; 15. (DNF) 57N-Tyler Newhart[25]; 16. (DNF) 25R-Jordan Ryan[10]; 17. (DNF) 20B-Cody Bova[23]; 18. (DNF) 7DK-Dylan Kingan[13]; 19. (DNF) 101-Cody Maroske[15]; 20. (DNF) 70-Scotty Thiel[6]; 21. (DNF) 11N-Harli White[8]; 22. (DNF) 4S-Tyler Street[24]; 23. (DNF) 38K-Chris Myers[18]; 24. (DNF) W20-Greg Wilson[16]; 25. (DNS) 7N-Darin Naida; 26. (DNS) 26-Zeb Wise