WAYNESFIELD, Ohio — Kyle Larson became the first repeat winner of the 39th annual Cometic Gasket Ohio Sprint Speedweek presented by Hercules Tire, topping Wednesday’s Rick Ferkel Classic at Waynesfield Raceway Park.
Larson had a terrific battle with Rico Abreu in the middle stages of the race, surrendering the lead to Abreu for a couple of laps before regaining the lead and driving to his 26th career FloRacing All Star Circuit of Champions victory.
Larson also scored a speedweek win Monday at Wayne County Speedway. The win at “The Field” is Larson’s 14th career victory in Ohio Speedweek history.
“Rico made me earn that one through traffic,” Larson said. “I got a little bit kind of sloppy in my lanes. Just trying to get the moisture. The cushion had fallen off the banking off of two so I really didn’t know where to run and he got by me on the bottom. And I was able to hit it right and slide him in three and four.
“I felt like the pace even slowed down so much down there I could make just a little more momentum up top. Awesome race track. I love Waynesfield. This is definitely my favorite Ohio track. I think this is my first wing win here…I think I finished second a couple of times with a wing and one without a wing. We’re going to head to Nashville now and try to get a win on Sunday.”
Abreu finished second.
“That was fun racing. A fun track and a great crowd. This place…when it gets like that…it’s a lot of fun racing, focusing on car control and mobility in my car,” Abreu said. “I felt like it was respectful everywhere and I could make up some time on him in three and four when I would hit it right. You had to run that seam and catch the moisture coming off and not get too high up where the track shelved off really bad.”
Tyler Courtney finished third.
In the K&L Ready Mix NRA Sprint Invader 360-305 challenge, Jared Horstman, a four-time NRA champion, grabbed the lead from Randy Hannagan with just four laps to go and drove to the victory.
The finish:
Feature (35 Laps): 1. 57-Kyle Larson [2]; 2. 24-Rico Abreu [3]; 3. 7BC-Tyler Courtney [4]; 4. 19-Parker Price-Miller [8]; 5. 10-Zeb Wise [5]; 6. 26-Cory Eliason [9]; 7. 13-Justin Peck [14]; 8. 49X-Cale Thomas [1]; 9. 5-Paul McMahan [12]; 10. 4-Cap Henry [13]; 11. 97-Craig Mintz [10]; 12. 22C-Cole Duncan [17]; 13. 22H-Jac Haudenschild [11]; 14. 28-Tim Shaffer [24]; 15. 11-Spencer Bayston [18]; 16. 18-Cole Macedo [15]; 17. 48-Danny Dietrich [23]; 18. 17B-Bill Balog [6]; 19. 91-Kyle Reinhardt [16]; 20. 16-DJ Foos [19]; 21. 101-Lachlan McHugh [22]; 22. 3C-Cale Conley [20]; 23. 1-Nate Dussel [21]; 24. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg [25]; 25. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr. [7]