RPW Column: Jimmy Wells Back In Accord Speedway’s Victory Lane With Friday Night Win

Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – ACCORD, NY – On a very comfortable Friday at the Accord Speedway, Jimmy Wells won his first Modified race of the season, driving the Jim Winchell owned #17 into Victory Lane after the 30 lap feature was completed.

For as much joy as there was amongst Jimmy, his crew and his fans, there was an equal amount of heartbreak for Joe Judge as the veteran driver looked to be on this night the car to beat. But an untimely pit stop ended his hopes for the win.

It was Judge and Geoff Quackenbush that led the field to green with Judge racing into the lead. Judge really stretched out his lead and looked to be in good position. But when the first caution of the race waved on lap 8, Judge ducked into the pits. He was quickly back out, but the loss of track position ended his chances on this night.

Wells took the lead on the restart and safely distanced himself from 2 time 2021 winner, Danny Creeden. Just before halfway, Danny Tyler moved into 3rd with Randy Green 4th.

As the race went uninterrupted the rest of the distance, it was Wells taking the win with a margin of 1.6 seconds over Creeden with Tyler 3rd, Green 4th and Scott Ferrier 5th. Tony Kawalchuk was 6th with Mark Pullen 7th, Judge 8th, Shane Jablonka 9th and Quackenbush 10th.

“It was tough luck for Joe Judge there, he was good and he had checked out,” said Jimmy in Victory Lane. “I guess it’s good to be in the right place at the right time. Definitely glad to get this first win of the year and it feels good to get a win for Jim Winchell and everybody on this car. We’ve been working real hard on it and tonight it paid off.”

Brian Durbin took the lead at the start of the Sportsman feature. After an early restart, Durbin put on a dominating performance to take his first Sportsman win over Kyle Rohner and Kevin Stevens. Durbin’s winning margin was an impressive 3.2 seconds over Rohner. Ryan Stortini finished 4th with Cole Hentschel 5th. The rest of the top 10 were Tyler Johnston in 6th, Matt Shultz 7th, Steve Williams 8th, Cody Higbie 9th and Travis Green 10th.

Walt Henry took the lead at the start and checked out, easily taking Friday’s Pure Stock race. Dave Grerard was 2nd, John Hechinger 3rd, Codi Clark was 4th and Anthony Tarantino was 5th.

Jeremy Quick was Friday’s winner in the Sprints with Kevin Ward 2nd, Steve Kyser 3rd and Dan Malley 4th.

Robert Beach was the 4 Cylinder winner with Jeff DeGroat 2nd, Richard Smith 3rd, Brandon Conklin 4th and Mike Travis 5th.

Mike DuBois Jr came home with the victory in the Rookie Sportsman over Ashton DeWitt in 2nd and Brady Cordova 3rd. Austin Smith and Megan Doty completed the top 5 running order.

Jim Pollard was the Slingshot winner over Trevor Rutty, Madison Lewis, Sophia Spear and Zach Cordova.

It’s a big night at Accord coming up on July 2nd as the track, in addition to hosting racing, will be having a fireworks display. It’s an impressive fireworks show that Gary Palmer and the staff put on at Accord and as things are moving back to somewhat normal, it will be great to see the smiles on the fans faces as the fireworks light up the southern Catskill’s skies. Celebrate part of your 4th of July weekend with a great night at the Big A.