By Mike Leone
It wasn’t easy, but John Mollick remained undefeated at Sharon in the RUSH Sprint Car division. Mollick started seventh, took the lead on lap three from Brian Cressley, then had to hold off a valiant effort by ninth starting Blaze Myers in the 20-lap feature for his fourth win in four races. Mollick has now won seven of the last eight races for the RUSH Sprint Cars at Sharon dating back to last season after never winning in years prior in the division at the track! Ironically, Mollick has still yet to win this season outside of Sharon.
“I saw Blaze (Myers) on the scoreboard and knew he was going to be there,” stated the 54-year-old Toronto, Ohio winner. “I was trying to hit my marks and ended up messing up more than I should have. I got really slow there toward the end of the feature, but we got it done. Scotty (Clever) really has this car dialed in good for me and it’s working well after having to fix the car a couple weeks ago.”
Cressley and Zach Morrow led the 21-car starting field to green with Cressley powering into the lead over Morrow and fifth starting Luke Mulichak. Mollick was already up to fourth after the completion of lap one then passed both Mulichak and Morrow for second on lap two. Mollick went to the outside to claim the top spot one-lap later from Cressley.
Mulichak and Morrow would pass Cressley for third and fourth on laps four and five respectively before Cressley slowed to bring out the caution with six laps completed. When racing resumed, sixth starting Arnie Kent blew into second, while Morrow and Myers passed Mulichak for third and fourth respectively. Myers was on the move as he put a slider on Morrow to claim third on lap nine. Myers was ripping the top as he drove around Kent in turn four for second on lap 17.
Myers, who was making his Sharon season debut, caught Mollick and pulled alongside on one occasion, but wasn’t able to clear Mollick, who took the checkered flag first by just 0.330 seconds. Mollick, who also has a Big-Block Modified win at Sharon, upped his all-time win total at the track to eight, which came in the McFadden Machine/Willy’s Car Wash/Rae Lynn Enterprises/Spring Church Car Wash/JET Engines, Scott Clever-owned #4J.
After back-to-back runner-up finishes to Mollick earlier this month, Kent settled for third after losing P2 to Myers. Mulichak was fourth. Morrow dropped to fifth as he’s now completed the top five for three straight races to go along with a third on May 17. Zack Wilson beat out 11th starting Brandon Shughart for sixth. Fourteen-year-old rookie racer, Samantha Priest, recorded her first career top 10 finish in eighth. RUSH’s points leader, Gale Ruth, Jr., went 16th to 9th. Charlie Utsinger was 10th. Heat winners were Kent and Mulichak.
RUSH Sprint Cars (20 laps): 1. 4J-JOHN MOLLICK[7]; 2. 41-Blaze Myers[9]; 3. 9-Arnie Kent[6]; 4. 55-Luke Mulichak[5]; 5. 68-Zach Morrow[2]; 6. 1-Zack Wilson[8]; 7. 29-Brandon Shughart[11]; 8. 21N-Samantha Priest[3]; 9. 24-Gale Ruth Jr[16]; 10. 23-Charlie Utsinger[4]; 11. 213-Lucas Roessner[13]; 12. 21-Grayson Bayle[10]; 13. 54-Devon Deeter[21]; 14. 63L-Wyatt Long[12]; 15. 13K-Kevin Kaserman[18]; 16. 1T-Ricky Tucker III[14]; 17. 501-Matt Urey[17]; 18. 2R-Rich Womeldorf[15]; 19. 48T-TJ Rosario[19]; 20. 62-Brian Cressley[1]; 21. 57C-Cooper Fritz[20]