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STENHOUSE JR. LEADS WAY IN MIDGETS RETURN AT TRI-STATE
By Eldon & Oleva Butcher
Haubstadt, IN - May 12, '07. Midget racers returned to Tri-State Speedway for the first time since the 1980 season. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. of Olive Branch, MS, won the 30 lap feature race Saturday night in a nationally ranked event with both POWRI and USAC teams combining to form a field of 52 Midgets. The event was the first of the three races scheduled to form the Toyota Challenge.
Kenny Kent Toyota of Evansville, IN, sponsored this opening round, the only session that will be run on the dirt.
Ricky Stenhouse drove the Bass Pro Shop Chevrolet owned by Tony Stewart. Stenhouse started in the fourth row in a 25 car feature field. Stenhouse snatched the lead from Davey Ray immediately after a restart on lap 10. And he proved to be the master of restarts once
he had the lead. He had the power when he needed it!
Ricky Stenhouse quickly found some words of praise in victory lane. "I want to thank Jay Drake and Tony Stewart for getting me in this car. It's just unbelievable! This Spike Chassis had a ton of power."
His chief competition came from local campaigner Hud Cone of Oakland City, IN. Cone started on the pole and found the lead three times in the first stage of the race. Yellow flags erased two of his passes with lineups forming again from the last completed lap.
Daren Hagen, who also started in row four outside of Stenhouse, marched up to finish third. Brad Kuhn and Jerry Coons Jr. rounded out the top five in the running order.
The five midget heat races in order were won by Davey Ray, Brad Kuhn, Brady Bacon, Stenhouse, and Josh Wise. Ray finished seventh behind Cole Carter. Tim Hessert III, Bacon, and Danny Stratton completed the rest of the top ten.
The two Semi Features were taken by A.J. Felker and Tim Hessert III. It was during the first one of these events that driver Dereck Myers was taken to the hospital after a crash in turn one that sent the car tumbling into the guard rail. Myers was third earlier in a heat race and was again battling to make the feature field.
Jonathan Hendricks of Fortville, IN, won the 20 lap POWRI Micro Sprint feature for the winged 600c.c. class that also competed on the program. Hendricks squeezed by 32K with just 3 laps to go and held on to take the victory. On the next lap Will Sylvester made a
similar pass work to claim second. Derek King settled for third. Jimmy Stearns and Austin Lackey rounded out the top five.
Six competitive heats were victories for Brad McDaniel, Trenton Beckinger, Austin Lackey, Lynn Ambrose, Jason Harris, and Will Sylvester. Even though there were almost 60 teams in the pit's the events were run in short order. Derek Hogue and Tyler Robbins took the two semi events.
Tri-State Speedway will be in action next on Sunday night May 27th. The MSCS Sprint Cars will be competing for a $3,000 top prize. The UMP Open Wheel Modifieds will also return to action. Tim Dierlam has won both of the features held at the track this season in the modified ranks.
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