Another One for the Old Guys: Gressman on the Gas at Tri City with GLSS

📸Tri City Volz Trackside Media

Auburn, MI - Just six days after 53-year-old Van Gurley, Jr went to Victory Lane with the Great Lakes Super Sprints Presented by PERFIT & ARP (GLSS) at Lawrenceburg Speedway, 52-year-old Phil Gressman found his way back to the Tri City Motor Speedway winner’s square on Friday night with the GLSS.

Bringing the field to green alongside fellow Ohio native, Chase Dunham, Gressman was in the second spot at the exit of turn two and down the backstretch for the opening lap. However, Gressman knows how important it is to lead these races, and by the exit of turn four, Gressman was able to take the lead from Dunham and control the opening lap.

Through lapped traffic, Gressman had company with Max Stambaugh working his way into the second spot as Dunham’s car started to struggle. At the halfway mark, Stambaugh showed a nose and tried to make a pass into turn one for the lead. He and Gressman were side-by-side at the exit of turn two when the caution flew for a spinning Devon Dobie in turns three and four.

Gressman handled the restart out front, with hard chargers moving through the field behind him, Dusting Daggett from the 10th spot picked off a couple of positions on the restart before Jared Horstman lost the top of turn one and came to a stop to draw the second caution of the night. Just two laps later, the same thing happened to Dunham, sliding over the banking in turn one to bring out another yellow inside of 10 laps to go.

The final run to the checkered stayed green, and Dagget may have had the strongest car on the track. He picked off John Ivy for the third spot on the track and challenged Stambaugh for second but ran out of time to move up the final two spots for the win. Instead, it was Phil Gressman who went to Victory Lane for the first time in his career at Tri City Motor Speedway.

“Why not, two for the old guys, we’ll take it,” Gressman said in Victory Lane. “Anytime you can get away from lapped cars, it’s gotta be beneficial. I was kind of committed to running the top there, I could see the race track changing without trying to kill a bunch of speed and drop to the bottom.”

Max Stambaugh finished second with Dustin Daggett, who came from 10th, finishing third. Behind him, Graham Huffman, from 11th finished in fourth, with John Ivy in fifth. Alex Clute, from 20th, finished 12th advancing eight spots for the Operating Engineers 324 Hard Charger Award.

The next event for the Great Lakes Super Sprints is Saturday, June 13th at Butler Motor Speedway. Fans who can’t make the trip can catch the action on GreatLakesSprints.TV.

John Ivy was the Ti22 Performance Fast Qualifier with a 12.055.

John Ivy won Engler Machine and Tool Heat Race 1.

Gregg Dalman won Beacon and Bridge Markets Heat Race 2.

Max Stambaugh won Northwood University Heat Race 3.

Alex Clute was the Operating Engineers 324 Hard Charger advancing 8 spots.

MacAllister CAT A Feature 1 (25 Laps): 1. 7C-Phil Gressman[1]; 2. 71H-Max Stambaugh[3]; 3. 85-Dustin Daggett[10]; 4. 09X-Graham Huffman[11]; 5. 5I-John Ivy[6]; 6. 49T-Gregg Dalman[5]; 7. 20I-Kelsey Ivy[4]; 8. 38-Chase Ridenour[14]; 9. 42-Boston Mead[13]; 10. 16-Ryan Ruhl[16]; 11. 27K-Zac Broughman[12]; 12. 14A-Alex Clute[20]; 13. 3A-Mike Astrauskas[19]; 14. 66-Chase Dunham[2]; 15. 13-Van Gurley Jr[9]; 16. 70-Eli Lakin[15]; 17. 81-RJ Payne[17]; 18. 7-Alex Aldrich[22]; 19. 67-Kevin Martens[18]; 20. 31-Jim Girard[21]; 21. 17-Jared Horstman[8]; 22. 23-Devon Dobie[7]