LAKE CITY, Mich. — Continuing his every other year habit of capturing Merritt Speedway’s biggest race, Michigan native Rusty Schlenk on Saturday collected a career-high $35,000 payday in dominating the second half of the Ed Vanduinen and Dan Salay Memorial Wood Tic.
The 37-year-old driver who races out of McClure, Ohio, overtook polesitter and race-long leader Travis Stemler on the 34th of 75 laps and cruised the rest of the way to win a race he’s also won in 2019 and 2021.
Failing to win every year is “definitely not the gameplan,” Schlenk joked in victory lane. “but if we got to skip a year to win one, man, I'll take it. It's awesome to be able to do this in front of this crowd, a huge crowd tonight, man.”
The fourth-starting Schlenk took the checkers 3.396 seconds ahead of Ionia, Mich.’s Stemler while 11th-starting Ryan Lanphierd of Midland, Mich., landed on the podium. Curtis Roberts of Coleman, Mich., improved six positions to finish 10th and Chad Finley of St. Johns, Mich., Friday’s $5,000 preliminary feature winner, rounded out the top five after running as high as third. Thursday’s $2,000 feature winner Austin Harnick of Clare, Mich., was 23rd.
Stemler held the top spot early with Schlenk moving up to second after a pair of early cautions, and Schlenk bided his time until the frontrunners were amid traffic and he tested the waters in the high groove.
“(Stemler) set a pretty good pace there, so I figured I didn't want to kill my tires,” Stemler said. “I just kind of rode with him until he started messing up. He made one mistake and we took advantage of it and that was just cruise control after that.”
The multitime DIRTcar weekly champion credited his crew for finding a successful setup.
“We just had a really good car, man. I've got to thank all my crew. They busted their bus all day and we made all the right adjustments on this thing,” said the winner, who punctuated his victory dusty several dusty donuts inside the frontstretch. “I knew we were a little bit off in the heat race. I was just a little too tight. I knew I had to work on it to get a little bit better there to be maneuverable through traffic.”
The race was slowed by four cautions, the first two in the first four laps with Rylee Knoll slowing on lap two and Ryan Unzicker getting out of shape while running fifth (Unzicker retired on the 15th lap while running 11th).
The third yellow came two laps after Schlenk’s winning pass on lap 36 when Bry Johnson spun and retired. The fourth and final slowdown came on lap 44 when 10th-running Brandon Thirlby missed the turn-one entrance and slid to a stop just beyond the track surface. He retired five laps later.
Two-time NASCAR Cup champion Kyle Busch piloted a Brandon Thirlby Racing entry and ran back in the pack until lap 34, when he slipped over the turn-one banking just as he was being lapped.
Notes: Schlenk notched his eighth overall victory of the season. … He dedicated his Wood Tic victory to Bob Wilson, the team owner for Cody Bauer Racing who died on Friday. “We lost a good man,” Schlenk said in victory lane, his voice cracking. “Bob was real close to all of us. So, sorry (for) Cody Bauer and all the crew, but this one for Bob.” … Ryan Lanphierd's third-place finish moved him into the track's points lead in the Super Late Model division. ... Last year’s Wood Tic winner Eric Spangler started 17th and ran as high as sixth; he finished seventh. … Jeep Van Wormer gained six spots and finished 10th. ... Greg Gokey ran as high as third in the early laps before fading to finish 11th. ... Saturday's 32-minute feature was slowed by four cautions with 10 drivers completing 75 laps and 18 running at the finish.
