ATTICA, Ohio — It’s difficult to believe Zeb Wise and his family, along with veteran crew chief Wayne Priddy, put a new team together in just a few months and are already winning.
The 18-year-old Indiana driver dominated Friday’s winged sprint car feature at Attica Raceway Park, becoming the fifth first-time winner in six races at the third-mile track this season.
Wise took the lead on lap three and beat Trey Jacobs, who started 16th, to the checkered flag by 5.1 seconds.
“I knew we would be pretty good here after are All Star performance…it kind of boosted by confidence coming here. I can’t thank my dad, Wayne, Sundollar Restoration, Quik Pits Auto…so many people on this car…Specialty Rigging, Bill’s Towing, Jason Dietsch Trailer Sales and everyone that helps out. It feels really good to be standing up here,” said Wise.
“That is one thing I’ve always enjoyed about this place. It’s really racy in the features and honestly, I’ve always been pretty good here in whatever car I’ve been in early in the night and have just not been able to cap it off. I knew when I passed winner DJ Foos in lapped traffic we had to be pretty far out,” added Wise.
Caleb Griffith, Cole Macedo and Stuart Brubaker rounded out the top five.
Rusty Schlenk survived a tangle with a lapped car and jumping the treacherous cushion in turns three and four late in the Dirt Nerds Podcast/Propane.com UMP Late Model feature and captured his 29th career win at Attica.
“I got into that lapped car going down the front stretch and got squeezed into the wall and I think it bent the left front spindle because I had a hand full after that. I don’t know if it’s towed out or in but I couldn’t drive straight. We jumped the cushion at that end. I was trying to take it easy and save the right rear…we went soft on tire. I didn’t see a nose so was just on cruise control but I knew when I jumped that cushion I’d have Irey or Drown there to take advantage so I turned up the wick the last few laps,” said Schlenk.
Jamie Miller led the first nine laps of the Fremont Fence 305 Sprint feature before surrendering to Dustin Stroup in lapped traffic. But Miller used the same traffic to regain the lead on lap 14 and survived three late race cautions to score his second straight Attica win, the 29th of his career in the division where he sits second all-time.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 10-Zeb Wise[3] ; 2. 3J-Trey Jacobs[16] ; 3. 33W-Caleb Griffith[2] ; 4. 18-Cole Macedo[4] ; 5. 35-Stuart Brubaker[1] ; 6. 5T-Travis Philo[5] ; 7. 4-Cap Henry[10] ; 8. 09-Craig Mintz[6] ; 9. 8M-TJ Michael[9] ; 10. W20-Greg Wilson[12] ; 11. 16-DJ Foos[17] ; 12. 23-Chris Andrews[11] ; 13. 3C-Cale Conley[20] ; 14. 27S-John Ivy[13] ; 15. 28-Skyler Gee[18] ; 16. 11N-Harli White[14] ; 17. 2-Ricky Peterson[15] ; 18. 14-Chad Wilson[19] ; 19. 1-Nate Dussel[8] ; 20. 97-Gary Taylor[7]