LIMA, Ohio — Although Mother Nature did her best to ruin the Memorial Day Weekend of racing for the Great Lakes Super Sprints Presented by PERFIT & ARP, all she did was create a thrilling Limaland Motorsports Park on Friday night for the Memorial Cup.
Jared Horstman and Kasey Jedrzejek led the 20-car field to green ahead of a 25-lap contest. Jedrzejek was able to use the outside starting spot to his advantage taking the lead from Horstman down the backstretch. Horstman refused to lay over easily, though, throwing a huge slider in three and four. Jedrzejek crossed him over and led the opening lap.
Seven laps later, the red flag was displayed when Jac Nickles’ flipped into the catch fence down the backstretch, tagging a passing Dustin Daggett in the process. Nickles, while unharmed, was finished for the night. Daggett attempted to repair his in the work area but couldn’t get the car back together in time to rejoin the field.
The red was timely for Jedrzejek, who was in heavy lapped traffic and being tracked down by Horstman. On the restart, Jedrzejek pulled away from Horstman again, but the battle was around the fifth spot. Nate Dussel, who started seventh, moved up to third on the restart while Phil Gressman, Zeth Sabo and Ryan Coniam battled for the top five.
Just after the halfway mark, as the No.11n was again reaching lapped traffic, Mike Keegan was turned head-on into the outside wall and collected Caleb Helms in the process. Keegan’s night was done, and Helms continued after a visit to the work area.
With seven laps to go, Horstman attempted to slide Jedrzejek for the top spot in turns one and two but couldn’t complete the pass. Dussel capitalized and made the move for the second spot while trying to reel in the leader.
Dussel couldn’t close and instead had to defend Horstman for second in the closing laps. Jedrzejek picked up the win, his first of the season, Dussel second, then Horstman, Stambaugh and Sabo.
“I saw Jared poking his nose on the bottom a couple times,” Jedrzejek said. “Even there at the end of the race, I seen somebody in three and four. Lapped traffic was a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be going into the feature. The way the track was, it was just so dominant on the top it was hard to beat it.”
The win is Jedrzejek’s first of the season and his seventh all-time with GLSS.
Dylan Woodling won the UMP modified feature and Todd Sherman topped the thunderstock main event.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 11N-Kasey Jedrzejek[2]; 2. 1-Nate Dussel[7]; 3. 17-Jared Horstman[4]; 4. 71H-Max Stambaugh[1]; 5. 29-Zeth Sabo[5]; 6. 6-Ryan Coniam[8]; 7. 01-Bryan Sebetto[10]; 8. 7C-Phil Gressman[3]; 9. 5M-Steve Irwin[12]; 10. 66-Chase Dunham[14]; 11. 23-Devon Dobie[6]; 12. 49T-Gregg Dalman[15]; 13. 11G-Luke Griffith[18]; 14. 37-Noah Dunlap[20]; 15. 40X-Caleb Helms[17]; 16. 24-Kobe Allison[16]; 17. 88N-Frank Neill[19]; 18. X-Mike Keegan[11]; 19. 31-Jac Nickles[9]; 20. 85-Dustin Daggett[13]
