Kres VanDyke led flag-to-flag to capture his fourth “First Kingsport Credit Union” Late Model Stock Car victory of the season at Kingsport Speedway on Friday night.
“This is an awesome win for our race team,” said a smiling VanDyke after climbing from his car in victory lane. “What a week we’ve had after unfortunately getting collected in a wreck not our fault on the first lap of the race last Saturday night at Lonesome Pine Raceway and tearing the car up badly. I can’t thank all of my guys who help work on the car enough for the hours spent back at the race shop just in order so we’d be able to race tonight. After we got back to the shop and unloaded the car to actually see just how severe the damage was, it was major.
“We had to take the whole front body off the car and take the engine out and then strip all the suspension components off to get down to just the frame, before we could take the car Townsend Oliver Racing Performance (TORP Chassis) to let them put a new front-clip on the chassis. We got the car back to our race shop in Abingdon late Wednesday evening and less than 48 hours later we’re sitting parked in victory lane at Kingsport Speedway. This win tonight is all thanks to all of my crew guys and the great sponsors we have on the race car. None of this would be possible without having great support behind me.”
Zeke Shell toured the .375-mile banked concrete oval fastest at 15.085 seconds in qualifying to earn the pole award. Following the roll of the inversion dice, the top-three were inverted putting VanDyke and Ronnie McCarty on the front row for the main event.
VanDyke surged into the lead over McCarty and Shell at the start, with Shell immediately pressuring McCarty for second. Racing off the second corner on lap 6, Shell moved past McCarty for the position and pulled right in behind leader VanDyke.
Over the next few laps, Shell tried dropping to the inside of VanDyke on both ends of the track in the corners sneaking a peek trying to get by the leader. But VanDyke was up-on-the-wheel getting the job done in holding Shell off from overtaking him out front.
Halfway into the 60-lap feature, VanDyke still had Shell riding in his rearview mirror with McCarty running a strong third and the top eight cars in the running order all on the same straightaway. The event’s only caution waved on lap 46 for debris on the track in the fourth turn off Bruce Blessing’s car.
With VanDyke and Shell on the front row for the double-file restart, Shell looked to possibly power his way into the lead. But VanDyke would have none of that scenario as he once again drove back out ahead over Shell and McCarty.
A disappointing end for Taylor Coffman on the restart, when his car failed to come up-to-speed due to a faulty plug wire issue and he slowly brought his ride into the pits after running fifth the entire race right on the rear bumper of Justin Fontaine.
But out front the race belonged to 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 to his fourth victory over Shell, McCarty, Fontaine and Joey Trent.
Completing the top 10 finishers were Allen Hawkins, Austin Peters, Rick Pannell, Coffman and Blessing.
With “The Concrete Jungle” taking a week of for summer break, McCarty will enter the next scheduled race over the Fourth of July holiday weekend on Friday, July 3 holding a 17-point lead in the Late Model Stock Car standings over VanDyke.
