RPW Column: Danny Creeden Races To Victory Lane As Accord Returns To Friday Night Action
Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – ACCORD, NY – It was a great night for fans of the Accord Speedway as the picturesque track in the southern Catskill Mountains held it’s first Friday racing event since September of 2019.
Those in attendance on Mombaccus Excavating Night were treated to some very good racing, especially in the Modified and Sportsman divisions which saw two very close finishes.
Danny Creeden led from wire to wire to capture Friday night’s 30 lap Modified feature. It was far from an easy win for Creeden as he had to fight off challenges of Richard Smith and Jimmy Wells.
By virtue of the heads up start, it was Creeden and Smith in the front row for the drop of the green. Creeden got the advantage and opened up some distance on Smith, but Richard seemed to get faster as the race went on. After a caution on lap 3, the race had a long enough green flag period to get into heavy lapped traffic. By lap 19, Smith was right behind Creeden in traffic. Richard got up along side of Danny at one point and actually nosed ahead briefly, but not enough to have been scored a lap leader.
As Creeden regained the upper hand, Smith met up with misfortune on lap 23 as a hit from a lapped car spun Richard around in between turns 1 and 2 on the tight bullring. This put Wells into 2nd, up from his 9th starting spot. With 7 laps left to race, Wells gave it all he had, but came up just short at the finish as Danny edged Jimmy by just 2/10th of a second. Joe Judge ran in the top 5 the whole race and finished 3rd with Kyle Van Duser 4th and Corey Lowitt 5th. Jesse Marks was 6th, Jimmy Maher 7th, Tony Kawaichuk 8th, Tom Hindley 9th and Ed Burgess 10th.
“Lapped traffic was really, really tough,” said Danny in Victory Lane. “I knew Jimmy was going to be tough and Richard stunned me when he got up along beside me. I gambled with a softer tire and that kind of killed me. I just tried to keep it straight and cut through the lapped traffic. Other than that, I’m happy, we needed this win big time.”
In another close feature, Kyle Rohner just nipped Cole Hentschel for the win in the 25 lap Sportsman feature. It was a great side-by-side duel for many laps by these two drivers.
Chris Van Duzer and Steve Williams made up the first row as the field took green, but it was 3rd starting Kevin Stevens who led the first 3 laps before the caution came out. Sixth starting Hentschel took the lead on the restart and 9th starting Rohner followed into 2nd. It set up a great battle with Hentschel taking the top groove and Rohner the bottom. It stayed that way until Rohner was able to nose out front for laps 22-23.
Despite being cleared, Hentschel fought back on the outside and led the 24th lap by the slightest of margins. But Rohner got a good run on the last lap and was able to clear Hentschel and take the win by 1/4 second. Stevens finished 3rd with Matt Shultz 4th and Nick Plumstead 5th. Sixth thru 10th were Travis Green, Charles Loiodice, Williams, Cody Higbie and Brian Durbin.
In the 15 lap Pure Stock feature, it was Walt Henry taking the win over Kyle Welsch, Joe Narok, Joey Scheffold and John Herchinger.
Austin Smith took the win in the 15 lap Rookie Sportsman feature over Ashton Dewitt, Eddie Owens, Emily Doty and Mike DuBois Jr.
The Wingless Sprints saw Eric Jennings take the win in the 15 lap feature over Kevin Ward, Dan Malley and Steve Kyser.
In the 4 Cylinder feature. Jesse Norman was the winner over Tim DeGrote, Chris Dyer, George Barninger and Brandon Conklin.
Madison Lewis was the Slingshot winner over Brady Cordova.
Racing returns to Accord Speedway on Friday, May 21st with the Mid Hudson Concrete Products all divisions night.
