By DAVID MILLER
Special to The Dispatch
Rusty Schlenk had never raced in Mississippi when he entered the gates of Columbus Speedway on Friday night.
The inexperience and 12-hour drive from McClure, Ohio didn’t matter for the Super Late Model driver, who found his groove midway through the heat and conquered the high banks for his first win of the season and first on the Mississippi State Championship Challenge Series.
Schlenk navigated two distinctly different corners to pass Lucas Oil regular Tyler Erb, who won the State Series race last week at Jackson, midway through Friday’s race. Schlenk enjoyed a two-second lead on the field for the last third of the race.
“I was trying to run the bottom enough to get up under Tyler and get him to come off that top,” Schlenk said. “I was a little more maneuverable than he was – he looked kind of tight. I knew if I could bait him to come down off the top, we could drive around him down there. We took advantage of it in 1 and 2.”
Schlenk was one of a handful of World of Outlaws drivers to venture South after series races at Farmer City were postponed due to weather. The State Series had back-to-back shows this weekend at Columbus and Whynot Motorsports Park in Meridian.
“We’ve been trying to race the last three weekends,” Schlenk said. “We’ve tried a bunch of different stuff on the car and wanted to do some custom tuning and get this thing figured out to see what works, so we decided to keep driving South until we found a race track.”
Michael Arnold finished third, while Tanner English and Brian Rickman finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
Just nine races into the 2018 season, Schlenk said his win Friday will provide a boost to the team.
“If you can come down here and win against this competition … it’s just as stiff down here as it is anywhere around the country, if not more,” he said. “There’s 10 or 15 cars here tonight that could win on any given night around the country. These tracks are different than anywhere else around the country – they’re slick, smooth and hard to get a hold of sometimes.”
Entry into turns 1 and 2 had been tricky for much of the night; drivers couldn’t get on the throttle until exiting the turn, and the top-side hadn’t begun to take shape. Schlenk eventually created a lane up top midway through the feature.
“It was kind of treacherous up there for a while,” he said. “I knew we’d be good up there, but it’s a fine line … once you commit to that thing, you have to commit fully or you’re going to be in the fence. Once that cushion started building up, it turned into a curb. You really had to tippy-toe up there.
“But the trickiest part of the track was down in turns 3 and 4, trying to maneuver through traffic. I thought it was pretty one-lane dominant, but once I got into traffic, I found I could move up the track a little bit.”
Erb, in his first-ever race at The Bullring, said he was unsure of how to navigate lap-traffic, and the brief moments of indecision led to Schlenk working him for the pass.
“Over here (turns 1 and 2), I initially got the jump through the middle, and it was pretty good for the first five or so laps,” said Erb, who started on the pole. “I wanted to go up there – my guy was telling me he was pretty close to me – but [Schlenk] made the right move in traffic, and his car was really good.
“It’s hard to pass here, and I left the top open trying to get around that 3 car, and he drove by both of us. You live and learn. Next time, I’ll stay on the top [in turns 1 and 2] no matter what.”
In other race action, Justin McRee won the Crate Late Model feature. Steve Russell, Chase Washington, Marcus Minga and Kyle Shaw rounded out the top 5.
Tony Shelton won the Late Model Sportsman feature. Chad McCool, Jeff Phillips, Caleb Pickard and Cade Barnard rounded out the top 5.
Logan Lux won the Street Stocks feature, his second win in as many races. Eddie Rickman, Lee Ray, Neil Brown and Hunter Holloway rounded out the top 5.
Josh Holbrook won the Factory Stock feature. Bryan Phillips, Cody Chism, Shane Burns and Tyler Castle
Tony Coffman won the Mini Stocks feature. Jeff Dean, Anthony Hall, Ronnie Guin and Brandon Barnett rounded out the top 5.
Jessie White won the Buzz feature. Josh Childers and Hailey Wade finished second and third, respectively.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 43 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.