SANDUSKY, Ohio — Make it two straight for drivers hailing from “north of the border” with the Must See Racing Perfit Sprint Car Series.
Canadian Aaron Willison drove to his first series win of the season Wednesday night in an intense Bob Frey Classic feature, leading all 30 laps at Sandusky Speedway but having to withstand heavy pressure from Davey Hamilton Jr. in the closing stages at the half-mile paved oval.
Following a restart with four to go, Willison fended off Hamilton’s advances and ultimately drove to his third career Must See Racing victory by .534 seconds in the Statham Construction-sponsored No. 36.
In the process, he brought veteran car owner Ken Statham back to the winner’s circle with the traveling 410 sprint car tour for the first time since Statham was injured at South Boston (Va.) Speedway three years ago and underwent surgery, missing significant time while he recovered and rehabbed.
“I wasn’t too impressed to see a [late-race] yellow come out inside five to go … that kind of sucked a little bit, but when I knew it would be a single-file restart, that was a huge relief,” said Willison, who won for the first time in his career at Sandusky.
“You don’t want to have a guy like Davey beside you on a restart; you just know how deep he’ll drive it in and how good he is at this style of racing, with a team that has it together each time out,” Willison added. “It’s good racing with them, though, and luckily we were able to get away there and hold them off.”
Named in honor of Hall of Fame racer and five-time Little 500 winner Bob Frey, who was in attendance at Sandusky Wednesday night, the Bob Frey Classic feature was frenetic right from the start.
Second-generation driver Sawyer Stout started from the pole in his Must See Racing 410 debut, but lost the lead in the first corner as Willison soared around the outside of the Kyle Capodice-owned No. 12.
It only got worse from there, as Stout got into two-time and defending series champion Joe Liguori in turn two as he fell back, spinning Liguori out on corner exit and drawing the caution flag for the first time.
The incident led to a complete restart, though Liguori was able to continue from the tail of the field.
Willison quickly motored away from the field as Bobby Komisarski charged into second place, engaging in a spirited battle with Hamilton over an extended green-flag run.
Lap after lap, Hamilton tried to get past Komisarski, largely to no avail as Komisarski defended on both ends of the Sandusky half mile. As he did so, while trading sliders with Hamilton several times, Willison steadily built his advantage to nearly a half lap.
Finally, Hamilton successfully cleared Komisarski in turns three and four coming to five to go, with the latter’s car getting completely sideways as it developed a loose handling condition. A lap later, Komisarski spun in the fourth turn to bring out the final caution, setting up a dash to the finish and erasing an eight-second lead for Willison in the process.
Though Hamilton tried twice to get to Willison’s rear bumper following a single-file restart – all but getting there coming to two to go.
“It is what it is,” admitted Hamilton Jr. “It’s part of racing. I just hated starting further back. It just got us stuck in dirty air, and made it really hard to get by the [No.] 7 for the longest time. He had enough speed to make it tough on me, and once we finally got past him Aaron was long gone.
“I knew my only chance at that point was a yellow, and we did get that, but it wasn’t enough. If we’d been second to Aaron from the start, I think we’d have had a really good race between us, but congratulations to the Statham team. They were strong all night and got the better of us this time.”
A late charge after restarting fifth gave five-time series champion Jimmy McCune the final place on the podium, followed by New Hampshire’s Alby Ovitt in his Must See Racing debut.
Kevin Mingus, who began his racing career in a go-kart at Sandusky two decades ago, completed the top five.
Hamilton Jr. kicked off the night by setting a new Must See Racing track record in qualifying with a lap of 15.089 seconds (119.292 mph).
J.J. Henes and rookie Brandon Lemmerman split the victories in twin 20-lap features for the Must See Racing Maxima Midwest Lights crate sprint car division.
Dylan Napier topped the compact feature.
The finish:
Feature (30 laps, starting position in brackets): 1. 36-Aaron Willison [2], 2. 14-Davey Hamilton Jr. [3], 3. 88-Jimmy McCune [12], 4. 20-Alby Ovitt [7], 5. Z10-Kevin Mingus [6], 6. 68-Joe Liguori [4], 7. 11-Tom Geren [10], 8. 8A-Adam Biltz [9], 9. 12-Sawyer Stout [1], 10. 7-Bobby Komisarski [5], 11. 26-Jeff Bloom [11], 12. 9s-Charlie Schultz [8]. [NT]
