RPW Exclusive: Cody Higbie Was The Man To Beat Friday Night At The Ulster County Bullring
Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – ACCORD, NY – One thing you can count on when you drive into the Accord Speedway Victory Lane is that track photographer Kevin Berryman will be ready and he may have a surprise shot planned. And that’s what happened in Accord’s Friday Modified Victory Lane.
Earlier in the week, Kevin had posted a 2009 photo of a young Cody Higbie being held by his dad, Jerry Higbie and Cody was holding a sippy cup.
On Friday, Kevin brought a similar looking sippy cup in hopes of recreating the shot.
I’m not sure that Cody and Jerry doing the photo in Victory Lane was part of Kevin’s plan. But young driver Cody was Friday’s winner in the 35 lap Modified feature, his 2nd Accord triumph of the season. And the photo was recreated.
Well done K.B.
Higbie moved up from his 9th starting spot to be in contention by lap 18 after passing Tighe Sherlock for 2nd.
“I got lucky on some restarts. Had the bottom line. It helped me move forward,” Cody said.
Travis Green, a Modified rookie, had led from lap 4. But Higbie kept inching closer and took the lead on lap 27 and he went on to a 6 second victory.
“The track was smoother tonight,” said the most personable driver of the Handsome Devil #97. “With the hot weather, that creates some issues. But I give them credit, the surface was very smooth.”
Randy Green had an early race incident, but steadily made his way back through the pack to finish 2nd. Travis Green finished 3rd with Hunter Lapp 4th and Danny Tyler 5th.
Completing the top 10 were Sherlock 6th, Scott Ferrier 7th, Chris Stevens 8th, Jimmy Wells 9th and Ryan Stortini 10th.
Rich Ricci Jr. and Andy Bachetti, the top 2 in the Accord Modified point standings, were not in action on Friday. So look for a shakeup in the points when Accord Scorer/Handicapper Robert Freer compiles the points.
Jackie Brown Jr. has been flirting with victory all season in the R & D Excavation and Construction #18 and Friday, he grabbed that first Sportsman win of the season.
After a number of cautions in the early part of the feature, the race settled down with Ryan Behrent leading with Brown 2nd. Lap 10 saw Brown move to the lead. Jared LaBagh took 2nd from Behrent on lap 16, but he was unable to unseat Brown from the top spot.
At the finish, Brown was the winner over LaBagh by a second. Behrent finished 3rd, Mike Travis 4th and Jeff Higham 5th.
Rounding out the top 10 were John Woinoski 6th, Lenny Hemlich 7th, Mike Murphy 8th, Ashton DeWitt 9th and Kyle Smith 10th.
A pair of Pure Stock features were held. The first was a held over feature from the rain shortened Battle at the Bullring. Ray Tarantino made a late race pass of Shawn Williams to take the win with Williams finishing 2nd. Gary Ronk was 3rd, Walt Henry 4th and Jayden Sleight 5th.
In the regularly scheduled Pure Stock feature, it was Henry returning to Victory Lane with Ronk 2nd, Tanner Drongoski 3rd, Sleight 4th and John Rood 5th.
The Accord Speedway Vintage Modifieds were in action with their great cars and they had a feature race with 3 classes.
John Flach was the overall winner and the Flashback winner with Larry Ricci 2nd. Jay Haviland was 3rd overall and the Mystique winner. And Hank Morin was the Late Model winner.
The 4 Cylinders were recently added to weekly competition and Brandon Conklin came away with the win. Jeff DeGroat was 2nd, Tim DeGrote 3rd, Walt Henry 4th and Ivan Guerra 5th.
Rob Charmello in the All Stars and Cody Williamson in the Juniors were the Slingshot winners.
On Friday, July 19th the Sportsman will be in the spotlight as they will be racing in the Phil Goetschius Memorial. Also in action will be the Modifieds, Pure Stocks, 4 Cylinders and Slingshots.
