MATTOON, Ill. — Steven Snyder Jr. led all 25 laps of the feature to earn checkers in Eibach Racing Preliminary Night One of the sixth yearly installment of the Keith Kunz Motorsports Challenge at Coles County Speedway.
It was Snyder’s 11th career victory with the POWRi Non-Winged Outlaw Micro League.
High-point qualifier Steven Snyder Jr. battled outside front-row contender Jeffrey Newell as the green flag waved with Snyder holding the front of the field as Jeffrey Newell, Frank Flud, Chelby Hinton and Brecken Reese all kept close inside the early contending top five.
Pulling away from the field in the opening six laps, Snyder built a two-second margin from second-running Newell as traffic began to come into play with Flud, Hinton and Reese battled.
Snyder held a commanding lead into the midpoint of the feature as all eyes were on the battle for the second spot as Hinton, Flud and Newell all attempted to run in the same line as caution would wave with Newell the odd-man out and facing the wrong way on the track.
Bringing the field back to green on lap 16, Snyder ran away from the field only to witness a late-race caution bunched the field back together for theatrics to end the evening with two laps remaining.
Again Snyder fired away on the restart and took the checkered flag more than a second ahead of the field.
“It’s our first time here and all those practice sessions last night paid off, the track came into our liking, and we tried something else from what we normally run and this car was bad fast,” said Snyder. “Lapped traffic never really came into play with the cautions coming out at the right time so we’ll see what we have in store for Saturday night.”
Hinton claimed the heavily contested second spot with Flud completing the podium. Reese and Darren Brown rounded out the top five.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 21S-Steven Snyder Jr[1]; 2. 28-Chelby Hinton[3]; 3. 81-Frank Flud[4]; 4. 12J-Brecken Reese[6]; 5. 11C-Darren Brown[7]; 6. 24S-Colby Sokol[13]; 7. 41-Colton Hardy[16]; 8. 28P-Gunnar Pio[12]; 9. 3-Drew Sherman[10]; 10. 12C-Chase Spicola[20]; 11. 61-Cole Tinsley[19]; 12. 32-Trey Marcham[15]; 13. 75-Blayne Buntin[14]; 14. 31BW-Braxton Weger[17]; 15. 71-Jeffrey Newell[2]; 16. 83W-Brant Woods[11]; 17. 94C-Jordan Clary[5]; 18. 4J-Jaylon Mills[18]; 19. 14B-Brody Bridgeman[22]; 20. 83-Cullen Hutchison[8]; 21. 10-Daniel Robinson[9]; 22. 40-Devin Feger[21].