Ridenour in the Rubber Earns Second GLSS Win of Season from Crystal Motor Speedway

📸 Over the Limit Images

Crystal, MI - One night after racing for $5,000, the Great Lakes Super Sprints Presented by PERFIT & ARP returned to action at Crystal Motor Speedway with nearly two dozen cars on the property looking for GLSS glory. Many teams were looking to keep Zane DeVault from going back-to-back and continuing to be the only driver with multiple wins this season.

Scotty Thiel and Chase Ridenour led the field to the green flag ahead of the 25-lap main event. From fourth, it only took Zane DeVault three laps to put his No.14 to the front of the field, moving Thiel back to second. Behind them, Ridenhour was holding off a pair of 15-year-old drivers with Graham Huffman and Skyler Evans raced side-by-side while reeling in the inaugural GLSS Champion.

As DeVault worked his way through lapped traffic, Thiel seemed to start catching DeVault, but wasn’t closing in at a close enough rate to make a challenge for the lead. Then, with 12 laps to go, Evans missed the cushion in turn one and spun to a stop for the first caution flag of the race. 

On the restart, DeVault continued to lead with no issue from Thiel. Behind them, Ridenour continued to hold off Huffman and challenged Thiel for second multiple times but couldn’t complete the pass. Then, with six laps to go, DeVault attempted to go to the outside of a lapped car and jumped over the cushion, spinning to a stop. As he tried to keep his car moving, DeVault jumped back into the racing groove, forcing Huffman to take evasive action and come to a stop over the top of turn two. Both cars were able to continue.

The incident handed the lead back to Thiel with just a handful of laps to go. Thiel committed to the top of the race track with Ridenour going on the attack. Ridenour used the bottom of the track in one and two keeping pace with Thiel, but gained on the No.51 using the middle of three and four.

Coming to the white flag, Ridenour completed the pass, sliding up in front of Thiel with one to go. Ridenour stayed at the front of the field for the final rotation around Crystal Motor Speedway, grabbing his second win of the season. 

“Actually, I think I hit [the rubber] the lap of the caution on accident,” Ridenour said in victory lane, speaking of his line in turns three and four. “I was like, man, I think we’ve got something here. Anytime you run down the No.51 car, it’s special.”

“You know it got a little hairy down in turn one,” Ridenour said. “He’s just trying to protect, and I get it. Man, it was tough to hit the bottom and the way he went in I thought he was going to slide up, and it worked out. It must’ve been a hell of a drag race going into three, cause I could hear him.”

Thiel brought home the runner-up spot ahead of Phil Gressman who came from third to round out the podium. Max Stambaugh and Dustin Daggett completed the top five.

Zane DeVault was the Ti22 Performance Fast Qualifier

Zane DeVault won Engler Machine & Tool Heat Race 1.

Skyler Evans won Beacon & Bridge Markets Heat Race 2.

Chase Ridenour won Northwood University Heat Race 3.

Devon Dobie won the Operating Engineers 324 Hard Charger, advancing 11 spots.

MacAllister Cat Feature (25 Laps): 1. 38-Chase Ridenour[2]; 2. 51-Scotty Thiel[1]; 3. 7C-Phil Gressman[10]; 4. 71H-Max Stambaugh[12]; 5. 85-Dustin Daggett[7]; 6. 23-Devon Dobie[15]; 7. 17-Jared Horstman[9]; 8. 87XS-Skyler Evans[3]; 9. 24-Kobe Allison[17]; 10. 13-Van Gurley Jr[5]; 11. 14-Zane DeVault[4]; 12. 6-Ryan Coniam[8]; 13. 09X-Graham Huffman[6]; 14. 66-Chase Dunham[13]; 15. 16-Ryan Ruhl[18]; 16. 27K-Zac Broughman[16]; 17. 3A-Mike Astrauskas[20]; 18. 67-Kevin Martens[19]; 19. 31-Jim Girard[21]; 20. 49T-Gregg Dalman[11]; 21. 20I-Kelsey Ivy[14]