ATTICA, Ohio – In just his fourth year of sprint car racing, Zeth “Howdy” Sabo is showing he has the talent to win a lot of features.
The Fremont, Ohio native took the lead in the 410 sprint feature at Attica Raceway Park Friday on lap two and withstood several challenges from rookie Bryce Lucius to earn his first win at the third-mile track.
Sabo, aboard the Jay Kiser Racing No. 23, set a blistering pace for the 30-lap feature in the Callie’s Performance Products 410 Sprint feature. He sliced his way through heavy traffic all while be hounded by Lucius. The only caution flew with seven laps to go and Sabo withstood a couple of sliders in the closing laps to score the win.
It was a great week for the 20-year-old driver as he drove from 13th to a third-place finish in Rich Farmer’s sprint car at Sharon Speedway on Wednesday.
“Lapped traffic was really tough. I didn’t know where to go and I hit the bottom a little bit but I just couldn’t stick it and I knew the top was getting dirty and Bryce kept showing his nose. I just kept driving it harder and harder and hopefully it was going to stick and it stayed. I can’t think my guys enough. They’ve been working their tails off,” said Sabo.
“When you can run up front and come from the back like that (Sharon) it gives you a lot of confidence. I knew if I could stay out front in this deal we’d be fine,” added Sabo.
Ryan Markham led the first five laps of the Dirt Nerds Podcast/Propane.com UMP Late Model feature before Rusty Schlenk took over. But, during a caution with just seven laps completed Schlenk went pitside with mechanical issues, handing the lead to Kyle Moore. Moore and Markham ran nose to tail and side by side throughout the remaining portions of the feature. Coming to the checkers Markham blasted off the high side and banged wheels with Moore to take the last corner, last lap win by .153 seconds.
It was Markham’s first win of the year at Attica, the 22nd of his career at the track.
“I really don’t get too excited in victory lane too much but this is a good one here. It was treacherous up top and he (Moore) started coming up there to the wall getting off and I had to get on the brakes. He left me just enough to squeeze in there on the last lap. We came here with the same stuff we had last year and just didn’t have any speed so we just have been working on it and hopefully we found some speed,” said Markham.
Kasey Jedrzejek stormed from his fifth starting spot into the lead at the drop of the green in the Fremont Fence 305 Sprint Feature. The only thing holding Jedrzejek back was a pair of cautions as he built substantial leads. With just two laps to go Dustin Stroup had chopped Jedrzejek’s lead in half but ran out of time. It is the second win of the year for Jedrzejek at Attica and the third of his career at the track.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 23-Zeth Sabo[2] ; 2. 32-Bryce Lucius[1] ; 3. 8M-TJ Michael[4] ; 4. 68G-Tyler Gunn[3] ; 5. 33W-Cap Henry[6] ; 6. 5T-Travis Philo[9] ; 7. 5-Byron Reed[8] ; 8. 9-Trey Jacobs[10] ; 9. 35-Stuart Brubaker[7] ; 10. 29-Cole Macedo[12] ; 11. W20-Greg Wilson[18] ; 12. 15C-Chris Andrews[5] ; 13. 7N-Darin Naida[13] ; 14. 5E-Bobby Elliott[15] ; 15. 2+-Brian Smith[17] ; 16. 70-Henry Malcuit[14] ; 17. 15K-Creed Kemenah[11] ; 18. 88N-Frank Neill[21] ; 19. 26W-Cody White[19] ; 20. 57N-Tyler Newhart[23] ; 21. 75-Jerry Dahms[22] ; 22. 12-Brian Lay[20] ; 23. 2-Ricky Peterson[16]