RPW Column: Cole Hentschel Wins Accord Sportsman; Balance Of Program Postponed
Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – ACCORD, NY – The weather radar did not look promising for the prospect of racing happening at Accord Speedway on Friday. But after 2 consecutive weeks of rainouts, the track stayed the course and the weather turned out to be most cooperative.
The program was running smoothly along until lap 5 of the Pure Stock feature. Two cars came together on the backstretch with one car taking a tumble. The driver who flipped walked to the ambulance, but was transported to Garnet Medical Center in Middletown for further evaluation.
With a busy Friday night, the speedway was unable to secure the services of an ambulance to complete the program. The balance of the races which include the completion of the Pure Stock feature along with Modified, NEWS, 4 Cylinder and Rookie features, were postponed to a later date. It was announced to follow Accord Speedway’s social media pages for further information as to the make up dates for these races.
In one of the races that was completed, Cole Hentschel was the winner in an efficiently run 25 lap Sportsman feature. Jared Miller finished 2nd and Tyler Johnston was 3rd.
Chris Van Duser and Miller led the field to green with Miller grabbing the lead. It was Miller, Van Duser and Hentschel running 1, 2, 3 for the first 7 laps until Hentschel got by Van Duser on lap 8 for 2nd. Hentschel started to close in on Miller while there was some great side by side racing further back in the pack.
On lap 12, Hentschel made the pass on the inside of Miller in turn 3 to take the lead. The only caution of the race came out on lap 15. On the restart, Hentschel maintained his lead over Miller and stretched out the margin over the final laps to win the race by 4 seconds over Miller with Johnston 3rd, Van Duser 4th and Brian Durbin 5th. Matt Shultz and Cody Higbie had a tremendous race with Shultz taking 6th with Higbie 7th. Kyle Rohner finished 8th, Kevin stevens was 9th and Josh Allen 10th.
Frank Twing Jr was the Slingshot winner over Zach Cordova, Chase See, Sophia Spear and Madison Lewis.
On next Friday, July 23rd, it will be the popular Autograph Night at Accord where the fans will have the opportunity to meet up with their favorite drivers. Any Accord drivers that would like to order 4X6 photos to sign for fans are encouraged to message track photographer Kevin Berryman on his Facebook page so he can get a photo package ready for you. All photo requests need to be done for Kevin by Monday as that is his cutoff deadline.
