Fan Notes from Wayne County OVSCA

Cale Conley Tom Myers (8/17/2019) – I attended the $3,000 to win OVSCA race at Wayne County Speedway Saturday, August 17, and it turned out to be a very interesting evening. Of course, with a 15 to 30% chance of rain… it rained. There was a storm that hit Orrville around 2:30 or so and dumped a bunch of rain on the track. Then it showered again up until about 5:00. I heard over the PA system that the track officials would attempt to run in the surface and that they would know shortly if they could race or not….but that they were determined to get this in. They called for all hands on deck….and even recruited some super stock cars to come out and help run the track in.

As all of this was happening, I wandered up to the ticket booth where you get pit passes and then just sat there on my cooler….until they made a determination either way. It looked like there were a good number of sprint cars in the pits….but I couldn’t tell who too many of them were because most of the cars were still in the haulers. And only a few haulers have lettering on them anymore…unless you are a World of Outlaws team. I was making a list in my head of who might be on hand and who might be at the FAST race at Sharon. Then I saw Cale Conley walking through the pits…and not long after T.J. Michael strolled up to the pit shack…..not on my list. I had already seen Broc Martin’s hauler when I pulled in so those guys, along with the Wayne County regulars and the OVSCA regulars, I reasoned, should make for a pretty good show.

As I sat there….on my cooler….waiting to find out if they were racing or cancelling…,folks walked past me, some bought tickets, some were waiting like me, just milling around. A nice lady pushing a baby around in a stroller rolled past and started talking with me. I said I hoped we could race because I thought there were some good racers here and I saw Cale Conley back in the pits. She told me that the child in the stroller was Cale Conley’s son, so I assumed the lady was Cale’s mom, she never said. She did talk about Cale and how this year has been a strange one, with the weather and the car owner quitting at the beginning of the year. She said Cale is trying to get more laps in and picking and choosing where he races to finish out the year. They still have the same sponsor so they hope to pull everything together and try running with the All Stars again next year. I wished them good luck and then I heard the track personnel asking for more race cars to help run in the track.

Trevor Baker After a few more minutes sitting there….I went over to the pit ticket booth and the young lady said they were going to have a drivers meeting shortly and run the show! The delay ended up being about an hour and a half or so. Cool, so I bought a pit pass and went in to find a seat. I went to the place where I always like to sit, taped my blanket down, and then headed off to the pits with my camera. Wow was it muddy back there. Can we run in the pit surface too? Ha Ha

There were 31 cars on hand, a really good number. I wandered around the pits a little and snapped a few pictures of cars and then made my way over to Andrew Palker’s car, where I talked with Andrew and his Dad for awhile. Then I walked the other direction and at the other end of the pits was Trevor Baker’s car. I saw Mr. Rick Ferkel standing there and he was helping wrench on Baker’s car. So when they pushed Trevor out to get motor heat, I went over and talked with Rick for a few minutes. I told him I really enjoyed the Rick Ferkel race at Waynesfield and thought it was a neat event except for one thing…..I told him I was really hoping there would be dancing bears there too! Ha Ha. I went on to explain that he was my favorite driver and I shared with him a few of my memories of him racing. I was a kid at the time so in my mind, Rick should have won every race I went to! I brought up the twin 25 lap race at Pennsylvania’s Tri-City Speedway back in 1977 or 1978. I was there that evening with my Dad and I will never forget it. Rick had the first 25 lapper won…I was so excited! But then Rick slowed on the last lap. Evidently, it was because he thought he saw the checkered flag. Bobby Allen then won the race. Rick was leading the next 25 lapper and had it in hand….and then a front wheel came off! After I brought this up, Rick told me that he did see the checked flag for sure. Maybe the flagman grabbed the wrong flag and then pulled it back, he didn’t know, but he said the guy did waive the checkers. And then Rick said those memories weren’t so good for him and we both laughed and then I reminded him that he had plenty of good ones. Wow, that was a thrill for me, thank you Rick for chatting with me for a moment!

There were also some other big name mechanics in the pits this evening. I saw Bonzai wrenching Ray Miller’s car and I also saw Cody Jacobs, Tim Shaffer’s former crew chief, milling about the pits. It’s too bad about Tim and Cody. They had a great thing going and were easily one of the top 10 sprint car teams in the country the past 2 to 3 years.

TJ Michael The OVSCA draws for heat race positions, there would be no time trials. Just hot laps and boy was the track tacky. And it stayed tacky all night long. The air remained very humid all evening and even after the sprint B main, the late model A main and the sprint A main, the track never got dusty! When I went out on the front stretch to take pictures of the winner, it was still soft and sticky. The heat races were a challenge for those who started in the rear because it was hard to pass. The top 4 would go to the feature with the top 2 finishers in each heat redrawing for their A main starting spots. There were 4 heats and the finish in the first heat was Dylan Kingan, Danny Mumaw, Dave Dickson, and Nick Patterson. Trey Jacobs missed the transfer by 1 spot. In heat 2 the finish was Bryan Nuckles, Henry Malcuit, Hunter Lynch and Lance Webb. Tyler Dunn missed the transfer by 1 spot. In heat 3 the finish was Cale Conley, T J Michael, Clay Riney, and Dean Jacobs. Shaun Hubler missed the transfer by 1 spot. In the 4th heat, the finish was Broc Martin, Andrew Palker, Steve Butler, Keith Baxter, with Trevor Baker missing the transfer by 1 spot.

The Wayne County track crew worked the track all night and would smooth it out after the heat races between each class of cars and even between individual heat races. The sprint car B main was entertaining with Tyler Dunn passing Trey Jacobs with a few laps remaining for the win followed by Trevor Baker and Chris Myers, and those 4 made up the last transfers to the A main.

The redraw got us Cale Conley on the poll alongside Broc Martin with Danny Mumaw and Bryon Nuckles in row 2. Row 3 consisted of Andrew Paulker and T.J. Michaels and row 4 got us Brad Malcuit and Dylan Kingan.

Broc Martin took the OVSCA win Saturday at Wayne County There were 3 start attempts as Cale Conley kept jumping a little too quickly each time but we finally got this 25 lapper underway. Broc Martin made the most of his front row spot by taking the lead and he ended up leading every lap and going on for the win. There was a yellow on lap 13 for Chris Myers for slowing to a stop and then again on lap 14 for Trey Jacobs coming to a stop. On lap 17 the red flew as Trevor Baker spun in turn 2 and Tyler Dunn ran into him. On the same lap Dean Jacobs and Clay Riney tangled. All four were done. Then, after the restart and just a lap later, 4th running Michaels and 3rd running Mumaw would touch wheels coming out of turn 4. Mumaw had a flat and slowed down before pulling off into the front stretch infield. This slowed down the pack and they all bunched up on the front straight with faster cars coming from behind. With the green still flying, Paulker, who was fighting for 6th position with Brad Malcuit, attempted to go around the pack using the high lane as he entered into turn 1 but he tangles with Malcuit and Paulker goes flipping. Everyone was okay but Paulker and Malcuit were done for the evening as were Michaels and Mumaw. On the restart, Martin stays in front but this time Conley stays right with him and gets his nose under Martin a couple of times in turn 1 and 2 but cannot execute a pass as Martin drives a great race and gets the win. Conley ends up 2nd followed by Nuckles and a career best 4th place finish for Kingan.

Half way thru this feature the track developed a huge ledge about halfway up the turns and when exiting turn 4 the racers would get up on it and pop wheelies down the front straight. It was quite the entertainment.

Thank you Wayne County Speedway, for working so hard to put on a race and thank you OVSCA. Congrats to Broc Martin for a nice win. We will see you at the next race!