Fan Notes from Wayne County All Stars

Cole Duncan (Tom Myers) 7/1/2017 – Originally, the All Stars had a race scheduled at another track on Saturday, July first. However, that track cancelled and Wayne County Speedway in Orrville, Ohio stepped up and welcomed the traveling sprint car series back for some more racing action. The Ohio Sprint Car Series was already on the schedule at Wayne County, so two sanctioning groups were in play for the evening. Thirty-seven cars showed up to do battle, a good count and among them was seventy-one time All Star feature winner Joey Saldana.

The track was in good shape considering the heavy rain that soaked the grounds the day before. During hot laps, the exit of turn two slicked off and the entrance to turns one and three developed ridges. This made for a challenging track to qualify on. Many just spun their tires in turn two and some almost got sideways trying to exit the turn. The third timer out was Joey Saldana in the Indy Race Parts 71 and he held the fastest time until the thirty-second timer, Cole Duncan came out and laid down a faster lap in his family owned 22 car. Cole drove it close to the guardrail in one and two and kept his momentum up so the slicked off part of turn two didn’t slow him down. The top five qualifiers were Duncan, Saldana, Andrew Paulker, Brandon Spithaler and Australia’s Sean Zemunic.

There were three support classes on hand but that was already baked into the evening long ago. However, the track did a great job of moving everything along and putting the sprints first. Thank you Wayne County!

Sean Zemunik There would be four heats with the top five locking into the feature. After that, two dashes, five cars each. One dash would determine the starting order of the inside row and the other the outside row. While wandering the pits before the heat races, I noticed Andrew Paulker’s car had about 100 names scribbled on it with a black sharpie. Evidently there was an autograph session when the gates opened and kids got to write their names on his car. That was pretty cool I thought. Brad Haudenschild was in a different car this evening…a blue twenty-three numbered car that looked pieced together. Normally he races the yellow thirty-eight car….but he demolished that car while leading the A-main of the Speedweek show here. I was told that they will have the regular car back soon, just haven’t had enough time to get it back together. Brad will need that yellow car because it’s fast…and he’s on the pole for the Mansfield make-up feature with the All Stars in October.

It had been cloudy all day and it looked like it could rain at any time……but by heat race time the skies had cleared and the sun was shining. In the first heat, Dean Jacobs took the win followed by Saldana, Ryan Smith, Paulker and Jordan Harble who bested his brother Mitch by one spot. Saldana was working good both low and high. The heat two finish was Spithaler, T.J. Michaels, who was looking so much better, Trevor Baker, Tyler Esh and Ryan Myers. In heat three, Sean Zemunic put on quite the driving demonstration as he had a left front tire and wheel come off on the final lap. As his wheel came off in turn three, he somehow wrestled the car and didn’t lift…willing it home for a fourth place finish! The finish in heat three was Max Stambaugh, Jordan Ryan, Lee Jacobs, Zemunic and Caleb Helms. Local favorite Brad Haudenschild finished sixth, missing the transfer. In heat four, track Champion Danny Mumaw makes a bonsai move entering turn three to take first away from Caleb Armstrong. On the last lap Chad Kemenah would get by Armstrong for second place by with a hard diamond move off of turn four. Mumaw wins followed by Kemenah, Armstrong, Cole Duncan, and Danny Smith. Duncan has been on a tear recently, winning the OSCS race here a few weeks back and also winning the All Star Speedweek final at Atomic just a week ago today.

I went back to the pits after the heat races to see what happened with Sean Zemunic and his wayward front wheel. By the time I walked up to his hauler the crew had a new front axle on it. I spoke up and said to Sean that I thought he did a great job driving….just getting that car to the finish line in fourth and not losing a spot. He smiled and said he had his arms crossed up just holding onto it and didn’t lift off the gas. We talked about how his performance has improved dramatically this year over last year. He attributed that to laps in the car and figuring out how to tune it. So far this season, Sean has been fast every night and making the A mains. He won his heat at Atomic last Saturday and was fifth in his dash. He told me he tries to race a lot at Wayne County because it’s a tough track and a great place to learn and get laps. He said that he started racing years ago when he was younger but had to stop because of lack of funds. Just in the last few years, he has been able to gather the funds to come race in the USA. He plans on racing here until the end of July and then heading home. He will not race in Australia but will save money for his trip back here next spring. He indicated that they are on a tight budget and to demonstrate, he showed me a wing panel that didn’t match the rest of the wing. Sean’s father travels with him and turns the wrenches. I asked Sean if he had plans to race at Knoxville someday and he said they need to work on their motors before they could try that. He doesn’t want to go there and run poorly, he said.

Joey Saldana (Hutch Xtreme Photo) I asked him if they would be hauling his car back to Australia and he said they store the car here in the states, but take the motors back with them. I then wished him luck and let him get back at it. That was a very interesting chat and Sean is a great guy. He was more than happy to tell me about his adventure. If you see Sean in the pits say hello and wish him luck!

After that, I went over and stood by Joey Saldana’s car. I looked the racecar over for awhile…the parts on the black and green Indy Race Parts 71 look fresh and fairly new. Another guy was talking with one of the guys working on Joeys’ car so I crept closer to listen. The guy was asking him if they had plans to continue running Joey in the car. The man said that honestly, they haven’t even talked about it yet. The deal was just for this weekend. The mechanic then indicated that it was just him and his wife as the crew this weekend and that they would probably need more than one motor if they wanted to head out with Joey and do more racing.

It was then time to go watch the dashes. Between the heats and the All Star dashes, the track crew did a great job scraping off the ruts and tilling up the turns. Then they watered it and ran it in and they did it quickly too. The result was a smooth track the rest of the evening. The first dash was to determine the starting order for the inside row. Dean Jacobs wins the dash and starts on the pole. He was followed by Spithaler, Mumaw, Duncan and Paulker. The second dash was for the outside row positions. The finish was Kemenah in first, followed by Saldana, up and comer Jordan Ryan, T.J. Michaels and Max Stambaugh. Next up was the B main. Brad Haudenschild had moved up into a transfer spot from the back but his engine stopped running with about four to go. Mitch Harble wins it followed by Dan Kuriger, Brandon Matis and Jordan Mackison.

Joey Saldana talks with Blake Anderson in Victory Lane at Wayne County (Hutch Xtreme Photo) Then it was feature time. At the start, there was a big pileup on the front straight. Trevor Baker, Jordan Mackison, Jordan Harble, Danny Smith and Ryan Myers were all caught up in it. It looked bad but most of the carnage was bent wings. Myers, Smith and Mackison make it back out for the restart. On the restart, Dean Jacobs grabs the lead and pulls out to almost a half straight lead and then on lap two, Paulker spins it in turn two. On the restart, Jacobs is in the lead again with Kemenah and Saldana following in that order. Jacobs was flying around the top and Kemenah was staying down around the bottom and gaining on Jacobs. Saldana was fading and falling back a bit as Kemenah pulls up alongside Jacobs about lap six or seven and passes him. Then Jacobs passes Chad back. They battled side by side like this until lap eleven when Kemenah finally worked by Jacobs for good.

Chad started to pull away and had a good lead from Jacobs as Saldana came up and passed Jacobs for second. It looked like Chad was going to run away with it as he was pulling away from the others and then a red came out on lap thirteen for Jordan Ryan, who flew off of turn two. He was ok but was done for the evening. Up to this point, the leaders still had not gotten to lapped traffic, if I remember correctly. On the restart Kemenah pulls out and away from Saldana but then another yellow follows for T.J. Michaels, whose motor stopped running. Looking back behind the leaders, Cole Duncan has come up to challenge Jacobs and sits in fourth with Mumaw right behind. Spithaler is sixth with Ryan Smith sneaking up to seventh. On the lap sixteen restart, Saldana gets right up on Kemenah and drives under the 10h car in turn three and drives away. Maybe Chad’s tires sealed over or maybe Saldana was playing possum because all of a sudden, Joey was fast and moving away from everyone else. At the finish it would be Saldana winning All Star feature number seventy-two, followed by Cole Duncan in second, who got by a fading Kemenah at the end. Kemenah held on for third and was followed by Ryan Smith, who came up from the eleventh starting spot.

Wow, a great race and a great finish for Saldana, who also gave the fans an emotional victory lane interview. Joey indicated that racing with the Outlaws was big business and that maybe he should start thinking about racing for fun again and he mentioned spending more time with his son. He also talked about winning as a team. He said that racing was a team effort and that they had a team effort this evening and won as a team. Listening to Joey, it was evident that he has been frustrated recently and his confidence had been shaken a little. This was good medicine for him and I wish him the best and I hope he can start racing with the All Stars on a regular basis. Congratulations to Cole Duncan as he continues to be fast right now and gains another podium finish against tough competition.

A thank you goes out to the All Stars for putting on another great show and also to Wayne County Speedway for taking on this race with little notice and doing a great job. The show was run with great efficiency and in spite of three support classes, the All Star feature was done by 10:30. I also want to thank Hutch Xtreme Photography for providing some cool pictures from this event.