FREMONT, Ohio — Seven years ago, Parker Price Miller won his first 410 sprint car feature at Fremont Speedway, following it up with his first career win with the Tezos All Star Circuit of Champions a week later.
On Saturday, the driver had a pep talk from hall of famer and former crew chief Rick Ferkel who told him to be thankful for the victories in his young life — Miller is currently being treated for a type of Non Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The wisdom from the hall-of-fame driver worked out as Miller took the lead with just eight laps to go on night two of the 40th Annual Cometic Gasket Ohio Sprint Speedweek.
He drove to the $10,000 payday on Kistler Engines/Kistler Racing Products Night.
“Seven years is too damn long I can tell you that. My first ever 410 win was with Rick Ferkel here in 2015 and then the next week, we won our first All Star race together at Wayne County. Just happy to be here,” Miller said. “Man, this thing was throttling great tonight. This is probably one of my most proud wins. I was really patient, stuck the bottom, stayed committed down there, didn’t let anything else bother me and just kept trucking. I’m really proud of this one and will remember it forever.”
Craig Mintz, a former Fremont track champion, took the lead from Chris Andrews with 15 laps to go, surrendered the lead to Miller with eight laps left and had two shots at Miller on two late restarts before settling for second.
“Second sucks. We come here to win races, but to run second to Parker…that’s a really good team. My team busted their butts…I apologize I couldn’t beat him, but they were really stoked and any time I can get those guys happy and get my sponsors happy and put on a show for you guys…that’s what we are here for,” Mintz said, standing beside his Real Geese Decoys, KS Sales and Service, Modern Woodman of America, Design Graphics Group backed No. 09.
“I was good in the middle but just couldn’t get by a few lapped cars. That’s the bad part about leading…you don’t know where anyone is at and Parker snuck by me and that was all she wrote.”
Current All Star point leader and defending speedweek champion Tyler Courtney put a bad couple of races behind him with a third place finish.
“Statistically one of our worst tracks, so to come here and get better and run third on a pretty slick Fremont like we are used to is encouraging. Congrats to Parker and that team. They’ve been busting their tails and have had a sort of up and down season like us. It’s good to have our NOS Energy Drink car going in the right direction and hopefully have a great rest of the week,” said Courtney.
Fremont’s Jamie Miller took the lead with eight laps to go in the Burmeister Trophy Dirt Truck feature from race leader Ben Clapp. Jamie survived two cautions with just two laps to go to claim his third division win of the season and his fourth at Fremont.
The victory is the 34th of his career at the track.
“This thing is just so easy to drive anyone could win in it,” Miller said beside his Fostoria Mod Shop backed No. 4M.
Chris Andrews lead the first 20 laps of the 35-lap All Star A-main before Mintz took control for six laps when Miller made his move to the front. Miller hit his marks and drove to the win over Mintz, Courtney, Cap Henry and Chris Windom.
The finish:
410 Sprint A-Main Feature (35 Laps): 1. 11-Parker Price Miller [3]; 2. O9-Craig Mintz [2]; 3. 7BC-Tyler Courtney [4]; 4. 4-Cap Henry [7]; 5. 19-Chris Windom [6]; 6. 23-Chris Andrews [1]; 7. 3J-Trey Jacobs [8]; 8. 97-Greg Wilson [12]; 9. 17-Carson Short [5]; 10. 16-DJ Foos [13]; 11. 13-Justin Peck [22]; 12. 49X-Ian Madsen [11]; 13. 22-Cole Duncan [17]; 14. 26-Cory Eliason [16]; 15. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg [18]; 16. 48-Danny Dietrich [24]; 17. 17B-Bill Balog [25]; 18. 18-Cole Macedo [14]; 19. 49i-John Ivy [15]; 20. 91-Kyle Reinhardt [23]; 21. 101-Lachlan McHugh [19]; 22. 19P-Paige Polyak [21]; 23. 10-Zeb Wise [10]; 24. 35-Stuart Brubaker [9]; 25. 5T-Travis Philo [20].
Dirt Truck A-Main (20 Laps): 1. 4M-Jamie Miller[5] ; 2. 67-Ben Clapp[3] ; 3. 7b-Shawn Valenti[7] ; 4. 25-Jeff Babcock[6] ; 5. 8-RJ Cornett[4] ; 6. 8KB-Kent Brewer[8] ; 7. P51-Dave Gumby Jr.[12] ; 8. 11H-Jim Holcomb[14] ; 9. 28-Dustin Keegan[16] ; 10. 26-Kyle Lagrou[2] ; 11. 4s-Keith Sorg[10] ; 12. 23m-Brad Mitten[15] ; 13. 8S-Brandon Stuckey[13] ; 14. 3-Devan McEwan[20] ; 15. 9-Curt Inks[11] ; 16. 7X-Dana Frey[9] ; 17. 83-Butch Latte[18] ; 18. 7H-JT Horn[17] ; 19. 32H-Dan Hennig [1] ; 20. 6-Cody Truman[19].