Approaching six hundred feature wins in his long and award winning career, Kelly Shryock has lost none of his zest for the sport as he continues to race multiple times per week along with also building winning race cars. Despite over forty years behind the wheel, he can still get up and challenge with the best of them in both the ultra competitive Stock Cars and Modifieds.
Friday night, Shryock charged past Braden Richards following a lap twenty seven yellow flag and then led the rest of the forty lap contest to become a repeat winner of the King of the High Banks Stock Car special held at Jerry VanSickel's Marshalltown Speedway.
Along with the Stock Cars three other IMCA sanctioned classes were in action on Friday night. Both Dillon Richards and Brayton Carter scored repeats wins, having also won main events on Thursday night while Kollin Hibdon put a whipping on the Modified field, leading from start to finish and never being challenged for twenty five laps.
The top six drivers in points earned during Thursday night's preliminaries were guaranteed the top three rows for the forty lap feature for the Stock Cars. The rest of the field was set through Last Chance heat races and one final Last Chance race. Thus, twenty four cars would be taking the green flag from Jeremy Fox for the Stock Car feature.
The action quickly ignited after the green flag dropped with Braden Richards, who redrew the pole, taking the initial lead. However, only one lap was completed before Johnathan Logue was dumped by another competitor, resulting in a quick yellow flag and a dismissal from the event for the other driver.
The battle up front remained heavy with Jimmy Gustin slipping past Richards for the lead on lap three, only to see Richards use a cross over on the next circuit to regain the top spot. Right behind them, Dallon Murty, Shryock and Jake McBurnie were battling hard for position. The bottom lane seemed to be the preferred groove at this point of the race, and drivers continued to jockey into position on the corners.
The racers settled in as a very long stretch of green flag racing then took place with twenty straight laps before the next caution appeared. Richards continued to lead but Shryock found the slick track just what he was looking for as he used the low side to maneuver into second and appeared to be just riding at this point, while Murty pounded the cushion and as Gustin slipped back in the field, Maguire DeJong cracked the top five. Maguire eased past Gustin as the halfway point of the race was signaled to the drivers.
After the halfway point, Shryock started to pick up the pace, closing in on Richards who appeared to be having a few issues turning in the corners. Braden pushed up the track and Shryock got inside of him on lap twenty eight, only to have the second and file yellow wave when Kaden Reynolds spun, saving Richards and costing Shryock the lead.
Kelly smelled blood in the water though, and just two laps later he again made a move on Richards down the back chute, squeezed inside of him heading into turn three and crossed the line as the new leader. The yellow was a killer for Richards as he was now surrounded by charging drivers and he slipped back into the pack, ultimately finishing out of the top five.
DeJong was on the move as he moved past Murty to take over the second spot but Shryock was long gone. Also showing some moves off was Cole Czarneski who has started eleventh on the grid. He moved up the track one lane and after much effort, started to make it work as he gradually drove his way up through the top ten and after a big battle with McBurnie, cracked the top five in the last laps.
Shryock was in control and he pulled away from the field, not letting anyone close in the final few laps as he drove on for the impressive win, earning himself five grand in the process. DeJong finished a strong second with Murty third. Czarneski continued to close and raced up to the fourth spot with Gustin making a late charge also to get back into the top five. Twenty of the twenty four starters were still on the track at the finish and amazingly for the long distance race with few yellows, not a single car was lapped during the feature.
If Brayton Carter was having some early season issues, a couple of nights of racing at Marshalltown appear to be good medicine for the Oskaloosa driver as for the second straight night he won the Sport Mod main event. And for the second straight night, his biggest battle was with another Osky driver in Dylan VanWyk.
Jenae Gustin grabbed the initial lead with Carter and Michael Johnson close behind as VanWyk quickly moved up through the field also. Carter tried both high and low before he was finally able to slip past Gustin on lap three. However, Jenae hung in with Carter, not letting him get away while VanWyk moved to third and appeared to be making time using the cushion.
In fact, it appeared the VanWyk was going to make a passing move as he was within a couple car lengths when the yellow waved for a spinning car, one of four yellows for minor spins that slowed the contest.
Back on green, Carter adjusted his line, running low in turn one and then sweeping in low and coming out high in turn four and it paid dividends as he started to pull away from the field. Despite two more yellows that would bunch the field, he was never challenged after this point as VanWyk simply couldn't stay with Carter.
A strong charge was executed by Matt Avila who started ninth and in the late going racing his way up to third with Kyle Olson and Gustin completing the top five.
A full field of twenty five Hobby Stocks took the green flag for their twenty lap main and while the records will show that Richards also won for the second straight night, it was far from a walk in the park for the Nebraska driver who had to work hard to take the lead from Briar Kriegel to grab the victory.
Thursday night runner up Corey VanderWilt was in front early with Eric Stanton and Joel Magee pushing him while Richards got a bad start and actually slipped out of the top five briefly. Suddenly, Kriegel made a huge charge going up on the top side of the track as he stormed to the front from the third row and in only five laps, he sailed past VanderWilt to take over the lead. Richards also got up on the cushion and started to move back up into a challenging position.
By the half way point, Kriegel was still flying around the cushion, but Richards had moved back up to second and was closely trailing the leader, with VanderWilt, Stanton and Meatloaf Williams just behind.
Richards started throwing sliders at the leader in turn four and while Kriegel fought off the first couple of attempts, on lap eleven Richards was able to clear Kriegel and then hold him off down the front chute and once he was in the clear, he was gone. Kriegel continued to drive a strong race, holding on to the second spot but never really able to challenge again as Richards added to his double digit feature win totals once again.
Stanton crossed the finish line in third with VanderWilt and Bradly Graham completing the top five. The Hobby Stocks put on an awesome show with only two of the starters not still racing at the end.
Twenty four Modified drivers wrapped up the evening with their fifteen hundred to win, twenty five lap main event and there would be no catching Kollin Hibdon in this race. He started on the pole and proceeded to pull away from the pack early with Logan Anderson moving up to second when the yellow waved just three laps into the contest for a spin, but that proved to be the only slow down of the race.
Once back under green, Thursday night winner Tripp Gaylord got past Anderson for second and tried to track down the leader but Hibdon was very strong. He was charging the cushion and his very high line was both fast and risky, especially when got into lapped traffic. However he did not back off or Gaylord, who remained relatively close, would have had an opportunity to close up on him.
Hibdon, originally from Pahrump Nevada with stops along the way in Iowa and North Dakota before now returning to Iowa where he is the dealer for Longhorn Modifieds, showcased his new car as he kept the pressure on and drove away from the pack, despite having to make a couple bold moves in traffic late. He won comfortable over Gaylord, Anderson, Cayden Carter and Chaz Baca Jr.
It was another impressive performance by the management and track crew at Marshalltown. The track was again very wide with racing all over it and the program moved along at a very prompt pace, despite extra distance events and awards ceremonies. The twenty two event program was completed in just a touch over three hours, just the way we would like it on a cool but thankfully windless night in central Iowa.
As always, thanks to J Van and all the other workers at Marshalltown that do such a good job at providing an excellent racing program. They slip into their regular season mode next Friday with their first point event of 2025. Their next big event is the Flo Racing Night in America upcoming in May.
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