The Left Turn
By: Ron Burt
The Rumble in Fort Wayne part 2, the final night Saturday December 20th. The night saw the return of the 100-lap Midget feature to the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum; Ohio’s Cap Henry authored a dominant performance of epic proportions. After earning the pole position for the grand finale of the 27th Rumble in Fort Wayne, Henry took off like a shot and never trailed during the Burco Molding Race to 100 for the headlining National Midget Division. Henry led every lap to a $4,000 victory, earning his second career Rumble in Fort Wayne triumph in the top class as part of a one-two sweep by Joe Liguori Racing. Though the race was split into three segments – providing air quality breaks near the one-third and two-third benchmarks, there was never a point where it felt like Henry wasn’t in control.
He fended off Russ Gamester through the first 75 laps, then pulled away late after young Kasey Jedrzejek shuffled Gamester out of the mix, creating a final battle for the runner-up honors between Jedrzejek and Henry’s car owner Joe Liguori.
A spin by fifth-running Derek Bischak right after the white flag set up a green-white-checkered finish, pushing the race one lap beyond its scheduled distance, but Henry easily pulled away from Liguori to a .618-second margin of victory.
The only true nervous moment for Henry all night came with 10 laps left, when he was passing the slower car of Chris Neuenschwander and got into Neuenschwander’s No. 3 with his right front tire. It could have been disastrous, but Henry barely missed a beat and continued to lead with no damage to his red No. 41.
The feature had total of seven yellow cautions which slowed Saturday night’s midget finale, including the two scheduled air-quality breaks. The lap-35 stoppage occurred on schedule, while the lap-70 break was pushed up by eight circuits after a stuck throttle for Sam Hinds led to a huge impact with the turn-one hay bales. The incident looked and sounded vicious, but Hinds climbed out uninjured, with his night over. Liguori got to third in the final quarter of the race, chasing Jedrzejek up through traffic, before making the pass for second coming to 12 laps left and settling in well behind his teammate. Jedrzejek crossed third in his best Rumble midget showing in three attempts, with Gamester in fourth and Jakeb Boxell finishing fifth to earn Rookie of the Race honors. Saturday’s headliner was the first 100-lap midget race in Fort Wayne in more than 20 years.
The 600cc micro sprint wing and non-wing features Saturday night were both won by Supermodified racer Tyler Shullick. These 2 wins pushed his weekend record to three-for-four and his career Rumble win total to six between the two micro sprint classes.
It was recently announced by Kryptonite Race car’s; their driver Fast Freddie Carpenter will run full-time with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series in 2026. It’s been his dream for over thirty years to run with the big dogs. He’s now 55 and it’s time to give it a shot. Until next week, keep your wheels down. Ron Out!
