One of the largest crowds of the season was present for Food City Night at the Races at Kingsport Speedway on Friday, and they were treated to a great NASCAR Whelen All-American Series racing program at “The Concrete Jungle.”

After getting caught up in a wreck last week which badly damaged his race car, resulting in many hours spent back in the shop to repair the equipment, Kres VanDyke of Abingdon, Va., was a man on a mission and he made a statement with a dominating performance by capturing his sixth “First Kingsport Credit Union” Late Model Stock Car victory of the season.

Wayne Hale paced the 16-car field in qualifying with a fast-lap at 15.157 seconds, with VanDyke second quickest at 15.185. But the roll of the dice produced an invert of the top six cars from time trials, which put Lee Tissot on the pole and Tyler Goodwin on the outside of the front row for the 60-lap main event.

Tissot grabbed the lead on the start over Goodwin and Zeke Shell, with two- and three-wide action back through the field. VanDyke got around Ronnie McCarty for fourth place on lap 5 racing off the fourth turn.

Tissot had moved out to about a seven car length advantage over Goodwin, Shell and VanDyke at the lap 10 mark. VanDyke passed Shell to take over third in the running order on lap 16, and just two circuits later a tough break for Goodwin when the right front tire on his car suddenly went flat between turns three and four which resulted in hard contact with the outside concrete wall to end a strong run and bring out the event’s only caution flag.

The double-file restart had Tissot and defending track champion VanDyke on the front row, with Shell and McCarty lined up side-by-side in the second row. Back under green VanDyke powered ahead of Tissot to take the lead, while Shell and McCarty battled for third before current points leader McCarty settled into the position.

What began for Shell as a good race quickly began going bad, when engine issues saw him lose positions to both Hale and Justin Fontaine just before halfway.

But out front the race belonged to VanDyke, who steadily built his advantage over second-running Tissot to right at a full straightaway with 10 laps remaining. But a bad break for Tissot with only three laps to the finish when the engine in his car suffered issues and sent him slowly into the pits.

The 34-year-old VanDyke, driving the Service Fuel Inc./Pizza Plus/Burger King/Wheel Chill/AR Bodies/Hy-Tec Specialty Coatings/RW Race Engines/Townsend Oliver Racing Performance (TORP Chassis)/Pro Image Graphics/No. 15 Chevrolet SS, cruised to his sixth Late Model Stock Car win over McCarty, Hale, Fontaine and a solid fifth place finish for Taylor Coffman.

Completing the top 10 finishers were Robbie Ferguson, Shell, Austin Peters, Joey Trent and Allen Hawkins.