By T.J. Buffenabrger
VERNON, N.Y. (October 4, 2022) — Jason Barney used perseverance to win the Cole Cup Tuesday night with the Patriot Sprint Tour at Utica-Rome Speedway. Barney, from Brewerton, New York, bounced back from a hard crash at Ohsweken Speedwy during the Canadian Sprint Car Nationals to pass Jonathan Preston with eight laps to go for the $4,000 victory, his second of the 2022 season and second in the Cole Cup to match his victory back in 2017.
Afterwards Barney was just happy to win another big race after being close to not competing on Tuesday due to some lingering effects from his crash at Ohsweken.
“Money don’t matter, Cole Cups are big, and any winner Utica-Rome is big,” said Barney in victory lane. “I just can’t believe this happened. Two weeks ago, we junked a good car at Ohsweken and thought we thought we were going win that one. It was completely my fault and I’ve barely been able to walk since. I was going ask Matt Farnum to drive my car yesterday and I was still on the fence about doing this because my back has been pretty messed up since Ohsweken.”
Preston took the lead at the start of the 30-lap main event from the pole position with outside front row starter Farnham and Barney in pursuit. After a red flag seven laps into feature for Mike Kiser flipping hard down the backstretch. Kiser exited the car under his own power.
While Preston continued to lead Barney began to pressure Farnham for the second position. On lap 12 the caution appeared for Larry Wight sliding off the track in turn four and slapped into a tractor tire. Despite the hard contact, Wight was able to join the tail of the field for the restart.
Barney continued to pressure Farnham using the inside line of the track until another caution flag with 18 laps complete with Tommy Wickham stopped on the backstretch. During the restart Barney got a run on the bottom of the track through turns three and four to take the second position. One lap later another caution flag slowed the field when Joe Trenca stopped on the track with front end damage.
The restart was short lived as Paulie Colagiovanni ended up backwards in turn two while running sixth. This forced Paitriot Sprint Tour officials to call for a red flag fuel stop due to the number of caution laps.
Barney wasted no time after the fuel stop driving under Farnham going into turns one and two and taking the lead through turns three and four. After Barney briefly pulled away, Preston started to close back in to challenge for the lead but ran out of time as Barney claimed the victory over Preston, Farnham, Danny Varin, and Shawn Donath.