WAYNESFIELD, Ohio — Canadian sprint car ace Skylar Gee scored a convincing victory Saturday night at Waynesfield Raceway Park by winning the second annual Bob Hampshire Classic 50-lap feature.
Just one lap after a mid-race restart, the 20-year-old sailed by leader Cap Henry and continued to hold him at bay for the remainder of the FAST 410 Sprint Series event, including two late race restarts.
“I struggled at the beginning of the race and lost a couple spots,” said Gee. “I just wasn’t sure where I was supposed to go. So, I just watched the guys in front of me, Cap and Christopher Bell, they are both great drivers. I just started doing what they were doing and cutting some good laps. I caught a few guys and got by them, so I kept hunting and got by some more. Then the track started laying a little bit of rubber, and it helped me out. It was a heck of a race.”
Henry started on the pole and blister off on the start with Cale Conley and Zeb Wise in tow. Just 10 laps in and Christopher Bell would sail into fourth with from his eighth starting spot. Getting into heavy lapped traffic it seemed at times Henry was there, and then Bell would squirt off into clean air. The stop for Bell came when he spun off turn four after contact with a lapped car.
Keeping the car going and no yellow flag Bell fell back in line several cars back from the top ten. Gee had dropped to fifth but now was well into the top five moving to second after Bell spun with Henry now the leader once again.
A yellow flag would appear when a car exited off turn two. Back green and Gee would stay right with Henry, until the second trip around, then he sailed by leader for the first time. As laps counted down Bell moved back into the top ten and on the next yellow to restart he sailed by four cars to move into the top five.
One last yellow flag would fall with but a handful of laps to go, but on the restart it stayed the same and nothing changed. Gee nailed the win with Henry second followed by D.J. Foos and Conley, Bell finished fifth.
“On those restarts there towards the end, I try to switch up my starts,” noted Gee. “I had a really good restart on that first one, but not so good on the second. I knew one slip up and they would pass me. I just tried to run a perfect last two laps. The race track was pretty good all night, pretty racy. Really racy the first half, then it started taking rubber. But there are a hundred cars here so cannot complain too much. It was awesome really.”
The finish:
Feature (50 laps): 1. 99-Skylar Gee[3] ; 2. 4H-Cap Henry[1] ; 3. 16-DJ Foos[6] ; 4. 3C-Cale Conley[2] ; 5. 21-Christopher Bell[8] ; 6. 11-Zeb Wise[4] ; 7. 22-Cole Duncan[9] ; 8. 5T-Travis Philo[10] ; 9. 81-Lee Jacobs[7] ; 10. 47-Caleb Helms[13] ; 11. 97-Max Stambaugh [18] ; 12. 49-Shawn Dancer [5] ; 13. 1ST-Nate Dussel[16] ; 14. W20-Greg Wilson[17] ; 15. 8M-TJ Michael[14] ; 16. 9J-Dean Jacobs[22] ; 17. J4-John Garvin[15] ; 18. 9X-Ricky Peterson[20] ; 19. K4-Chad Kemenah[19] ; 20. 4-Danny Smith[12] ; 21. 78-Todd Kane[11] ; 22. 35-Stuart Brubaker[21]