BELLEVILLE, Kan. — For the second year in a row, John Carney II kicked off the Belleville 305 Sprint Car Nationals by charging to the Friday night, 20-lap preliminary feature win.
After racing from fourth to win his heat race and then redrawing the pole position for the Sixth Annual Belleville 305 Nationals feature event, the El Paso native gunned into the lead at the outset and never looked back in the URSS-sanctioned feature en route to the $3,000 payday aboard the Coyote Candle No. 74b Sprint Car.
Carney weathered just one caution before the race’s midway point before streaking on to the checkred flag with a 0.757-second advantage over Stu Snyder as Jeremy Campbell filled out the podium in third.
“The track was sticky, it was good all night,” Carney said of the half-mile Belleville High Banks clay oval that absorbed over an inch of rain the previous night. “It was a hammer down all night, it was a testament to horsepower for sure.
“We’ll just hope the track dries out some tomorrow,” Carney continued. “It’ll be a different game tomorrow night.”
While Carney paced the field the entire 20 rounds, third-starter Snyder battled past Campbell for second in the early going and tried to keep pace with Carney all the way before settling for runner-up honors aboard the Myers-powered No. 5 JR1.
“We had a good start and was kinda catching him every couple of laps, I didn’t need that yellow,” Snyder explained of the race’s only caution after nine laps when Jacob Dye cut a tire and came to a stop.
“I stumbled pretty bad on the restart and fell back quite a bit and then started to get back to him,” Snyder commented. “I think we might have something for that red car tomorrow night.”
After starting outside the front row, Campbell settled for the show position on the podium aboard the Myers-powered No. 51 Schnee.
“I knew I had to get off the start but it stumbled a little bit, and that 74 really takes off well,” Campbell explained. “Stu and I diced a little bit, I was trying to change up my lines a little bit to find some cleaner air besides his disturbed air and I thought I had a shot at him a time or two.”
Behind the lead trio, 2021 Belleville 305 Nationals champion Luke Cranston fought off Tyler Drueke much of the race with the latter rounding out the top five.
Brandon Bosma climbed four positions to capture sixth with Joey Danley, Jon Freeman, Jeremy Huish and Kyle Jones completing the top-10.
Cranston bested the 45-car field in qualifying by establishing a new track record of 16.361 seconds before Conner Thomas, Jones, Drueke and Carney II topped heat race action. Landon Thompson and Blake Scott both claimed “B” Main wins.
The Sixth Annual Belleville 305 Sprint Car Nationals wraps up with Saturday night’s $7,000-to-win and $1,000-to-start championship finale.
Feature Finish (20 Laps)
1. 74b-John Carney II (1), 2. 5-Stu Snyder (3), 3. 51-Jeremy Campbell (2), 4. 20-Luke Cranston (6), 5. 12-Tyler Drueke (4), 6. 23-Brandon Bosma (10), 7. 14-Joey Danley (8), 8. 81-Jon Freeman (7), 9. 88J-Jeremy Huish (9), 10. 9-Kyle Jones (13), 11. 2J-Zach Blurton (11), 12. 2-Whit Gastineau (16), 13. 10-Jordan Knight (15), 14. 16-Conner Thomas (5), 15. 7T-Landon Thompson (17), 16. 22c-Chad Koch (12), 17. 11-Toby Chapman (20), 18. 88r-Ryder Laplante (23), 19. 17-Lee Goos, Jr. (24), 20. 27$-Blake Scott (18), 21. 11k-Tyler Knight (19), 22. 25x-Gunnar Pike (16), 23. 20d-Jacob Dye (21), 24. 2d-Dusty Ballenger (22).