ATTICA, Ohio — Patience paid off for T.J. Michael Friday night at Attica Raceway Park.
The Plano, Texas, native led the first 15 laps of the All Pro Aluminum Cylinder Heads/Kistler Racing Products Attica Fremont Championship Series feature, then used a restart with a hand full of laps remaining to his advantage and drove back out front to take his first Attica 410 win.
Michael, who admitted his team has struggled this season, credited the hard work of his two crew members, the support of his sponsors and a never-give-up attitude to propel him to the $4,000 pay day on Burns Electric/Metal Master Fabrication Night.
“It’s a lot more fun when you’re running up front and not in the back I can tell you that. I struggled trying to figure out where I needed to be on the race track. I felt OK…I really didn’t feel good at the beginning. Once Tyler got up…I thought he was a lot better than me there towards the middle of the race. I started playing with my wing and moving around and I realized I had been running in the wrong part of the race track. We had a really good car,” said Michael.
Tyler Street came home second, with Trey Jacobs, Craig Mintz and D.J. Foos rounding out the top five.
Rusty Schlenk blasted into the lead of the Dirt Nerds Podcast/Propane.com UMP Late Model A-main on lap 10 and drove to his third victory of the season at Attica. It was the 34th of his career in the division, leading all drivers. It hadn’t been a good week for Schlenk as he had transporter problems, blew a race engine and even busted his own teeth with a tire iron while racing with the UMP Summer Nationals.
“That was a sketchy patch coming out of four…that one made the butt pucker a little bit. That was a fun race. I knew I was going to have to get up front early or Devin (Shiels) would be gone. I took a chance and squeezed between the wall and the 50 car there early in the race and made it work and that let us get around Devin early and kind of get out there and cruise. I was kind of nervous starting sixty,” said Schlenk.
Jamie Miller held off challenges early from Larry Kingseed Jr. and a late race charge from Matt Foos to score his third Fremont Fence 305 sprint A-main win of the year at Attica. It’s his 34th career 305 win at the track for the three time and defending division champion.
The finish:
- 8M-TJ Michael[1] ; 2. 4*-Tyler Street[4] ; 3. 3J-Trey Jacobs[3] ; 4. 09-Craig Mintz[5] ; 5. 16-DJ Foos[7] ; 6. 25R-Jordan Ryan[12] ; 7. 97-Greg Wilson[15] ; 8. 18-Cole Macedo[10] ; 9. 14R-Sean Rayhall[2] ; 10. 5-Byron Reed[17] ; 11. 33W-Caleb Griffith[19] ; 12. 5T-Travis Philo[9] ; 13. 68G-Tyler Gunn[6] ; 14. 8-Zach Ames[11] ; 15. 14H-Zane DeVault[13] ; 16. 22S-Brandon Spithaler[14] ; 17. 9Z-Duane Zablocki[16] ; 18. 23-Chris Andrews[8] ; 19. 41-Thomas Schinderle[20] ; 20. 2+-Brian Smith[18]