WARTBURG, Tenn. — Matt Henderson picked a good time to get his first win at Wartburg Speedway. Claiming the richest event ever held at the East Tennessee track, the Loudon, Tenn., driver took the lead when polesitter and race-long leader Kenny Collins tangled with a lapped car on lap 19 of Friday’s Dylan Kennedy Memorial and dominated the rest of the 50-lap race for a $10,037 victory in the unsanctioned Limited Late Model special.
Surviving the third-mile track’s tricky cushion, Henderson was never seriously challenged through the second half of the race in taking the checkers 3.879 seconds ahead of runner-up Jed Emert of Maryville, Tenn. Mike Weeks of Friendsville, Tenn., finished third with Dan Tipton of Kingston, Tenn., and Jason Manley of Loudon, Tenn., rounding out the top five.
“I’ve always liked this track just because of the people, but now that I’ve won here, I like it even more,” Henderson said of the high-banked, third-mile oval. “I’ve never been able to run the top here like that, not on both ends. Just had to abuse the car for 50 laps to stay ahead. They were telling me I had a lead, but I was afraid if I backed off of it I’d get out of rhythm and jump the cushion or tear the wall down and end up tier parking.”
Henderson did indeed continue to hustle his race car even after opening a sizable lead. The torrid pace nearly cost him as he had multiple brushes with the wall and suffered a busted radiator that left his machine overheating and spewing water through the race’s closing laps.
“I knocked the radiator out of it on the cushion with about four to go and the thing got to 260 (degrees) and puked all the water out,” Henderson said. “But that’s a tough engine and it ran strong. It’s not all the motor the rules allow you to have, but it was plenty tonight.”
Henderson’s victory came in the No. 7 CVR Race Car normally driven by Darrick York of Oakdale, Tenn. Henderson was filling in for York, who had to miss the event due to a Covid-19 diagnosis.
“The Yorks gave me a great car,” Henderson said. “I think the result would’ve been the same if their driver had been in it. Darrick does a fantastic job. Thoughts and prayers to him going through Covid right now. I hate he wasn’t here to at least be part of it, but he kept up with us.”
After starting second, Henderson initially slid back to third during the race’s opening laps as Collins built an early lead. Getting rolling on the high side, Henderson took second back from Jason Cardwell of Knoxville, Tenn., on lap eight and began erasing the gap to Collins as the leaders reached the tail of the field.
Henderson caught Collins by lap 15 and began looking to make a pass for the lead as the two cars diced through slower traffic. But just as the battle for the point heated up, a pair of cars directly in front of the leaders tangled on the back straightaway on lap 20 and collected Collins in the resulting pileup.
The caution was charged to the lapped cars, but Collins had to head to the pits for repairs, handing the lead to Henderson. Collins restarted on the tail of the field, but after having to spin to avoid another pileup on the next lap, he retired from the race and was credited with a 16th-place finish.
Hometown driver Drew Kennedy, whose late brother the event honored, ran as high as third midway through the race before retiring to finish 11th.
