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Henderson Highlights Heritage Days at Rapid Speedway

Heritage Days weekend brought the MSTS sprint cars to Rapid Speedway Friday night and it was Justin Henderson of Tea, SD Highlighting the show. The 25-lap main event started with Troy Schreurs of Baltic, SD snagging the early lead from hometown driver Jody Rosenboom in chase. Rosenboom was hot on the tail of Schreurs for the first five circuits with 4th started Henderson closing in. Rosenboom took a shot at the lead on the bottom of the race track, but couldn’t complete the pass, but allowed Henderson to come to his outside and take away the number 2 spot right before a caution flew over the raceway. Off the restart it was now Henderson on the hunt and would make the move off turn 2 to take the lead away. Tyler Drueke of Eagle, Nebraska would come to the third position over Rosenboom and Brandt O’Banion driving into the top 5. Another caution would fly and bunch the field back up on lap 10 and give the drivers one last crack at getting by Henderson as the race would go green the rest of the way. It would be to no avail though as Henderson would rocket away from the field and open up a huge lead. Behind Rosenboom jumped back into the third position and would challenge for 2nd with Schreurs in a great battle. Henderson found lap traffic with 10 laps to go and could go high or low, whatever was needed to work through the slower cars ahead and drive out to a 9 second lead and win the event. In victory lane, Henderson would talk about how special it was to win here, growing up watching races at Rapid Speedway, and then cutting his teeth as a driver in Rock Rapids over 20 years ago. Justin has raced professionally all over the country with different series and the World of Outlaws and is now back in the Midwest driving locally. Schreurs came home in 2nd ahead of Rosenboom, Drueke, and O’Banion.
The opening feature of the night belonged to Wyatt Steenhoven in the Lems Auto Recyclers Sportsman class. It was Tyler Bradley of Harrisburg netting the early lead with Steenhoven on his bumper. Steenhoven tried to go low and make the pass for the lead, but a caution would come out keeping Bradley out front. After the restart Steenhoven switched things up and went to the high line to pull even with Bradley. The two would go side by side for the lead before Steenhoven would take sole possession of the lead with 2 laps to go and take of the Heritage Days win. Bradley was second ahead of Neal Krull, Brian Kroon, and Todd Steenhoven.
In the Sybesma Graphics Hobby Stocks, the leader of the Mid-pack Mafia Tracy Halouska of Worthing, SD took advantage of his front row starting spot taking the lead and never looking back. Defending champion Dustin Gulbrandson of Sioux Falls was all over Halouska throughout the race. Dylan Fitzpatrick of Magnolia quickly worked from 11th into the top 3 to join the fun as those three drivers would separate from the field and play cat and mouse all through the 15 lap event. Gulbrandson would again challenge for the lead late in the race but a caution/checkered finish would thwart his advance and Halouska would get his first win of the season. Gulbrandson would garner second ahead of Fitzpatrick. Dylan VandenTop crossed the line in 4th while point leader Tyler Schlumbohm drove from 15th to 5th.
The J&L Sales and Storage Bmods had a family battle up front between the brothers Johnson. The race started with Tracy Johnson and Dereck VanVeldhuizen putting on a great battle for the lead. VanVeldhuizen up top and Johnson down low would trade the lead over the first 4 laps would finally gain control. All while this was going on it was Tracy’s brother Tyler on the move jumping into the top 4. All of a sudden VanVeldhuizen would lose control of his race car on the top of turn 4 and spin around, but he managed to keep the tires going and drive out of the way and we stayed under green. After that Tyler made the move into 2nd getting around Dave Kennedy of Sioux Falls and set his eyes on brother Tracy. A caution with 5 laps to go would make things interesting, but Tracy drove flawlessly over the stretch going high in 1&2 and low in 3&4 to take the win. Tracy from Lake Preston, SD and Tyler from Montrose, SD have their own local ties as mom Pam (Gruis) Johnson is a Rock Rapids Native. Dave Kennedy took home 3rd and VanVeldhuizen regrouped from his mishap to finish 4th ahead of Kevin Joachim.
In the final race of the evening Roger Verdoorn would lead the opening laps of the Precision Auto Body Stock Cars with Darrin Korthals in chase. It wouldn’t take long for Korthals to ride the rim around the high side and take the lead away. Korthals continued to show the way with Elijah Zevenbergen making the moves through the pack and coming to the 2nd position by lap 4. He was 5 car lengths back of the leader at the time, but he would close the gap in a hurry and start to challenge Korthals for the lead by lap 7. Korthals hung on to the edge until the hallway point of the feature when Zevenbergen snagged the lead away. A caution came out and that let Korthals reset for another shot to regain the lead, but it also allowed the rest of the field to catch up as well. On the restart Zevenbergen would take off for a nice lead and Korthals would now be in a battle for 2nd with Colton Arends. Zevenbergen came to the checkers with a 3 second advantage and Colton Arends came from ninth to grab 2nd away from Korthals finishing in 3rd. Roger Verdoorn would settle into 4th and Rich Gregoire came home 5th.
Rapid Speedway will be back in action next Friday night with an A-mod special promoting and supporting Team KWC and car 46-7 on Kids with Cancer Night. On a daily basis 46 kids are diagnosed with cancer and 7 earn their wings.

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