RPW Column: It’s A Great Night To Be Green; Randy & Travis Green Win Big At Accord Speedway
Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – ACCORD, NY – Green was the dominant color of the evening at Accord Speedway on Friday night.
Randy Green drove to his first ever Accord Speedway Modified win while defending Sportsman champion Travis Green grabbed two wins as he swept both features.
“This place has been pretty sour to me,” said Randy in his post race interview. “I’ve lost a lot of races here, I’ve raced here a lot and I started here. Two Sportsman features I lost by inches at the flag stand. And with the Modified, I would have the lead, lose the lead, solid 2nd and top 5’s. Just never been able to get it done. Finally to be able to put it all together feels really good to get it into Victory Lane.”
In the feature, Randy took the lead on a lap 2 restart after a tangle of cars saw Dillon Steuer flip in turn one. Dillon was uninjured. Using the bottom groove, Randy stayed comfortably in front for the rest of the race, easily maintaining his advantage on a couple of restarts.
“We always get the car good for the bottom,” Randy said. “The track was really racey and you could pass.”
Craig Mitchell had his right side sail panel work it’s way loose very early in the feature. But it didn’t slow him down as he finished 2nd to Green. Shane Jablonka was third. Corey Cormier just edged Joe Judge for 4th. Following Judge in 5th were Danny Tyler 6th, Chris Stevens 7th, Allison Ricci 8th, Justin Holland 9th and Cody Higbie 10th.
In the Sportsman holdover feature, Travis Green was the early leader and he had little difficulty racing to a 2.5 second margin of victory. Hunter Lapp was 2nd, Aidan Elliott was 3rd, Mike Travis 4th and Kyle Smith 5th.
In the regularly scheduled feature, Green quickly moved to the lead early and Lapp was again in pursuit. Hunter was able to keep it close, but still Trailed Travis by 1.5 seconds at the finish. Roger Hummer was 3rd, Ashton DeWitt 4rh and Elliott had his 2nd top 5 finish of the night with a 5th.
“We had a good car all night. We struggled a little in the heat race, Hunter got by me and he was definitely better than I was,” Travis said post race. “We changed a bunch of things and the track got slick. I thought that would help Hunter. But we got to the lead and it felt really good to get going. I think we have a really good car for the rest of the year.”
Eric Jennings swept to two wins in the North East Wingless Sprints (NEWS). In the holdover, it was Jennings over Jeremy Quick and Mick D’Agostino.
It was Jennings again over Quick in feature #2 with Joe Kata 3rd.
The Rookie Sportsman also had two features. Justin Miller was the winner in the holdover race over Aaron Busch and Bentley Thomsen.
The regularly scheduled Rookie feature saw Joe Smith take the win over Mike Mikulski and Charles Brewer.
Jayden Sleight was the Pure Stock winner on Friday. Gary Ronk was 2nd, George Van Arsdall Jr. was 3rd, Robbie Williams 4th and Brian Walsh 5th.
Tim DeGrote picked up the win in the 4 Cylinders. Chris Dyer was 2nd and Bruce Illenberg 3rd.
A.J. Albreada was Friday’s All Star Sprint winner. Alex McCann was 2nd and Sophia Spear 3rd.
Calleigh Stritmater was the winner of the Junior Slingshots. EJ Hatch was 2nd and Breanna Reynolds 3rd.
