Zeke Shell snapped a nearly one year winless streak at Kingsport Speedway on Friday night with a bump and run with 20 laps to go.
Shell made the winning move to get around Ronnie McCarty on lap 40 of the 60 lap race, pushing McCarty up the track and sliding by to take the lead and the win. Shell held McCarty at bay after a late race restart as Kres VanDyke and McCarty traded paint behind him.
“Man, hopefully we’ve got all of our bad luck behind us,” Shell said in victory lane after the race “Sitting parked in victory lane – this right here is what it’s all about. It makes all the hours you work back at the race shop worthwhile.
To date, Shell has not had the success he had hoped for this season.
“To say that our season up until tonight has been frustrating, well, that would be a major understatement,” Shell remarked. “We’ve had a fast race car at each event. But we’ve either gotten collected in somebody else’s wreck while running inside the top five, or the electrical issue we struggled to determine the cause of on our race engine has hurt us. Hopefully this win will be the first of several others we’ll get this season. We had a really good car tonight and I believe we showed that during the race.”
Shell said his win was gratifying because of who is there with him on race nights and who supports him, including his father and his wife, Amber.
“It’s really gratifying to be able to win races with my father (Pat Shell), and now with my pregnant wife (Amber Shell) supporting me on race night’s. We’re just a small, family-owned race team and we don’t have a big pit crew. Tonight at the track it was just myself, dad, Amber and spotter Scott Clark helping. We’ve got some friends whose businesses help us a little with our racing, but basically our racing budget consists of we need to win enough purse money each week to help fund us getting back to the track the following race.
“With my wife and I expecting our first child later this year, who knows once our baby arrives if I’ll be able to continue racing. All I know is, I’m thankful for the opportunities I’ve had driving a race car and I’m just going to enjoy racing for as long as possible.”
With his victory, Shell becomes the fourth different driver to drive into victory lane at Kingsport Speedway this season and finds himself fourth in points, 10 points behind championship leader Lee Tissot.
The championship race is very tight heading into this Friday night’s racing program with Tissot leading by one point over McCarty, four points over Kyle Barnes, 10 points ahead of Shell and 13 points ahead of Wayne Hale. Every driver in the top 11 finds themselves within 40 points of the championship leader, including defending champion Kres VanDyke who sits sixth, 19 points back.
Kingsport Speedway’s Robert Walden contributed to this report.
