HAMPTON, VA :: CE Falk once again scored the victory at Langley Speedway on Saturday night after a dominant performance in the EZ Auto in Newport News 125. It was the second race of the season at Langley Speedway and the second win at the track for Falk who’s seeking his fourth Langley Speedway track championship. Falk will also race in the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown at Richmond International Raceway on Thursday where he will enter a rematch with Kyle Larson who dumped him for the win at the UNOH Battle at the Beach in Daytona earlier this season.
Matt Waltz started on the pole after running a lap time of 15.573 in qualifying. Waltz led the early laps of the race but had Falk on his rear bumper for much of the opening laps of the race until the lone caution of the race came out on lap 16. Waltz would continue to lead until lap 32, when CE Falk dropped to his inside and made the pass. From there, Falk went unchallenged on his way to his second straight win.
“We’ve never started off this hot before,” Falk said. “We’ve never won the season opener (at Langley) before. To win two in a row to start the season with all the competition they have here is great. We need to get some wins, quick. Lee (Pulliam) has a lot of wins already. I’m just happy for my guys… I was trying to ride there. We had one of the longest green flag runs in the history of racing at Langley. That was nuts. I’m glad the car held up. I’m proud of my guys. It’s been a tough week going to Richmond and coming here and testing a new tire and racing here. It’s a lot of work. We got it done and it was well worth it.”
Matt Waltz went on to finish second.
“We had a good qualifying run,” Waltz said. “Car was pretty good all day. We just didn’t last in the race, came up a little bit short. It didn’t have everything it needed. We needed a little more. It wasn’t terrible but we’ll work on it.”
Nick Smith, who had problems with the transponder on his car, finished third while Brenden Queen went on to finish fourth.
“We struggled all day,” Queen said. “We had our nose kind of pushing up in the center all day. I’ve got some great guys behind me. CE and Wesley Falk also helped me out a lot. We worked on it all day and slowly got quicker. We put down a decent qualifying lap, not as good as I wanted but it was pretty good for how we’ve been struggling to put it in fifth. I’ve got to work on my restarts. Missed a shift there on the start and let Oakley by… once I finally got around Oakley, it was too late to catch the leaders. I definitely learned some stuff in my second race out here. I think we’re still third or fourth in points and got all the fenders on it.”
Danny Edwards finished fifth with Greg Edwards, Casey Wyatt, Mark Wertz, Jeff Oakley and Duane Shreeves rounding out the top ten.
Because of tire wear issues, the cars ran the brand new Hoosier F-50 tire on the right side and the F-45 tire on the left side. The drivers all said it helped to reduce tire wear and seemed happy with the new tire.
The most controversial incident came in the closing laps when CE Falk tried to put Jeff Oakley a lap down. Falk ended up moving Oakley up the track, a move that left Oakley miffed. Falk said it wasn’t something he intended to do and that Oakley wouldn’t race him that way. He also worried that the contact with Oakley would’ve caused Oakley to spin out and erased his enormous lead in the closing laps. Oakley was able to hang on to the car.
The next race at Langley Speedway will be on May 4th with twin 75 lap races for the NASCAR Whelen All American Series Late Models.
