RPW Exclusive: Chris Jakubiak Finds Luck At Accord; Wins Gobbler Sportsman Feature Saturday
News Director 
Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – ACCORD, NY – Chris Jakubiak spent the first 29 laps of Saturday’s Sportsman feature at the Accord Speedway running second.
He figured his trip to the Ulster County Bullring from up north was worthwhile.
Sometimes, racing fortunes change just that quick. All of the sudden, Jakubiak found himself in Victory Lane.
Joe Judge had his Sportsman car in fine shape Saturday as he took the lead at the start of the feature. A plethora of cautions in the early laps moved officials to have all restarts single file.
Judge was easily able to pull away from Jakubiak on all the restarts and Joe looked to be on his way to a Sportsman win. Unfortunately, Judge was unable to move around a pileup in turn 3 on the final lap.
Jakubiak was able to lead the final lap, holding off Travis Green who finished 2nd. Hunter Lapp recovered from 3 incidents, including a rollover to take an improbable podium finish of 3rd. Justin Comes recovered from an early race encounter with the 2nd turn tires to finish 4th. Derrick McGrew finished 5th.
Rounding out the top 10 were Butchie Irwin 6th, Ray Leonard 7th, Ashton Dewitt 8th, Darrell Quackenbush 9th and Tyler Treacy 10th.
“I just tried to stay as close as I could,” as Jakubiak described his 29 laps chasing Judge. “Car was pushing a little on me. I had to send it a little hard into there to get it to turn.”
At first, Jakubiak wasn’t concerned about the excessive caution laps. but as the laps wore on, it did cross his mind.
“I didn’t put any fuel in after the heat because we were 80 pounds over,” Jakubiak said. “But I think that by now, we are pretty close.”
The Albany-Saratoga regular wasn’t even sure he was racing until Friday night.
“We were hanging out at the shop last night and I was like, are we doing this? We got together and said, what else do we have to do? And here we are.”
Walt Henry had a dominant season on the Accord/OCFS Pure Stock/Street Stock circuit. He possibly could have won a championship, but missed races to go on a trip with his wife, Alicia.
Henry capped off his season with another win Saturday over Brandon Conklin and Ray Tarantino.
Tarantino was the early leader. Just as Jayden Sleight took the lead, Sleight spun while Henry cruised by on the outside for the lead.
Henry was not able to pull away from both Tarantino and Cinklin as each of them had a good look at possibly taking the lead. While Conklin was finally able to clear Tarantino for 2nd, Henry took the win with Conklin 2nd and Tarantino 3rd. Wayne Taylor was 4th and Shawn Williams 5th. Positions 6-10 were Aiden Demorest 6th, Gary Ronk 7th, Bob Sleight 8th, Tom ‘Wild Child’ Campfield 9th and Jayden Sleight 10th.
“Everybody was real fast tonight,” said Henry in Victory Lane. “Nobody was going on the high side. There were no marks there so I kept running in under caution so I could find that spot later. It’s been a great season, everyone around us has been awesome.”
Lydia Navarro made her first trip to Accord this season count as she dominated the All Star Slingshots feature. Rob Charmello was 2nd with Tucker Jones 3rd, Reanna Davis 4th and Patrick Weiss 5th.
After losing the lead with 2 to go, Bodie Marks recovered to take the lead on the last lap to take the win in the Junior Slingshots. EJ Hatch was 2nd, Preston Trautschold 3rd, Walt Henry IV 4th and Addisyn Roger 5th.
Here is the recap of the 2023 Gobbler Contingency Awards.
- Sportsman Hard Charger $580 Hard Clay After Hours – Ashton Dewitt.
- In Memory Of Dave Coene $50.12 12th place Sportsman finisher – Kevin Berryman KBS Photos – Nick Brundage
- Pure Stock $100 Highest Finishing 2023 non-winner – Steve & Darlene Smalley – Brandon Conklin
- Every Heat race winner- $50 – Dave Farber Accurate Collision
- Sportsman- Butchie Irwin, Hunter Lapp, Joe Judge and Travis Green
- Pure Stocks- Ray Tarantino, Wayne Taylor and Jim Sykes
- All Star Slingshots- Lydia Navarro
- Junior Slingshots- Preston Trautschold and Bodie Marks
