RPW Column: Jerry Higbie Simply Dominates Accord Speedway’s Modified Field Friday
Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – ACCORD, NY – It was the warmest day of 2021 so far in the southern Catskill Mountains area of Ulster County, home of the Big A, Accord Speedway.
As day turned to night and things began to cool, Jerry Higbie stayed red hot as he went from wire-to-wire to take the victory Friday night at the bullring on Mid Hudson Concrete Products Night.
It was Higbie and Shane Jablonka that led the field to green with Jerry getting the lead as a quick caution for Corey Lowitt slowed the action. Richard Smith got a push back to the pits and did not return and Geoff Quackenbush also retired from the race.
Higbie led again on the restart before the caution flew again for cars coming together in turn 3. Randy Green and Kyle Van Duser both got a tow off and Joe Judge ducked into the pits and was quickly back out.
It was Higbie in command on the restart and he started to show just how potent the #51 HigFab Chassis car was on this evening as he put much distance between him and Jablonka with Danny Tyler running 3rd.
As Jerry continued to draw away and he easily moved through the lapped traffic, attention turned to other battles on the track as Tyler had pressure on Jablonka and Danny Creeden was moving up from his 13th starting position. In the final 10 laps, both Tyler and Creeden moved past Jablonka. At the finish, it was Higbie taking the win by a nearly 5 1/2 second margin over Tyler in his first feature run in his sharp looking #22. Creeden was 3rd over Jablonka who held off Rich Ricci Jr as they finished 4th and 5th. Scott Ferrier, Jesse Marks, Jimmy Wells, Tony Kawaichuk and Kevin Ward completed the top 10 running order.
In Victory Lane, Jerry said he got some inspiration from another racer who won a big race, using his company’s HigFab Chaasis earlier in the week.
“In the heat, we were a little bit tight. We made a few adjustments, I think the track came to what our set up was. I was kind of channeling my inner Steve Paine from his win the other night in one of our cars, (STSS at Outlaw Speedway) just trying to do what he does I guess. The car was good, actually it was perfect.”
It was perfect indeed. The lap charts showed that Jerry was the only Modified in the 13 second bracket, very close to a half second faster than any of the other competitors.
The Sportsman race on Friday was a real tester for the racers, a marathon 25 lap race filled with many cautions. In the end, it was Tyler Johnston coming out on top in a race that saw just a handful of racers that weren’t involved in some type of incident. Travis Green, who suffered a lot of body damage in one of the early race cautions came home 2nd with Charles Loiodice 3rd, Kyle Rohner 4th and Kevin Stevens 5th. Cole Hentschel was 6th, Chris Van Duser 7th, Cody Higbie 8th, Ryan Sortini 9th and RJ Smith 10th.
Cody Clark made a last lap pass of Livy Johnson and went on to victory in the 15 lap Pure Stock victory. Joe Narok was 2nd, Walt Henry 3rd, Chris Kanuk 4th and Jaden Sleight 5th. Johnson ended up 6th.
Pat Dempsey dominated the Rookie Sportsman race, leading all 15 laps en route to the victory on Friday. Bryan Jones was 2nd with Ashton DeWitt, Austin Smith and Eddie Owens filling out the top 5 finishers.
In the 4 Cylinder division, it was Richard Smith taking the victory over Dave Donovan, Tim DeGrote, Jerry Kingeter and Ryan Heady.
Zach Cordova was the Slingshot winner over Madison Lewis, Brady Cordova and Cody Cordova.
Racing returns to Accord Speedway next Friday, May 28th with an all divisions show including Vintage Modifieds.
