By Greg Grabianowski
ALGONA, Iowa (July 15) – To say that Kelly Shryock’s racing career has been special would be a huge understatement. The veteran driver reached yet another milestone on July 15 at Kossuth County Speedway as he earned his 500th career victory.
The milestone win came with a little icing on the cake for Shryock as the Beck’s Hybrid IMCA Sunoco Stock Car Special paid a cool $1,000 to the victor on Thursday evening.
Kevin Opheim and Ryan Watnem brought the 16-car field to the starting line as Watnem jumped out to the early lead. The caution flag appeared on lap number three and Donavon Smith became the new leader after the restart.
The yellow flag came out one lap later again but Smith continued to hold the lead. On lap six, Shryock took over the top spot and never looked back for his memorable win and his fifth Stock Car feature win of the summer in Algona.
Smith held on for the runner-up spot followed by Derek Green, Troy Swearingen and Watnem. Green went from 10th to third as the feature’s hard charger.
The Karl Kustoms Northern SportMod feature was the most competitive feature as Colby Fett earned his second victory of the season at the oval with a pass with seven laps remaining and held off some hard charging pursuers.
The race started with Gerald Curry taking the early advantage before Alex Smith took over the lead on lap number three only to see his night end two laps later.
Fett continued to hold the top spot and had to hold off a hard charging Matt Looft, who was trying both the high side and the bottom of the track to try to overcome Fett.
Looft took second with Doug Cook placing third, George Nordman was fourth and Charlie Stevens rounded out the top five.
The IMCA Modified feature did not have a lot of suspense as Jeremy Mills made it two weeks in row in victory lane. Zach Dokter was the early leader of the race before Austin Wolf took over the top spot on lap number four.
Wolf led for two laps and then Mills and Wolf went door-to-door until lap eight when Mills eased ahead. Once in clean air, Mills was never challenged the final 12 laps of the race.
Wolf came home in second with Shryock taking third as Dokter finished fourth and Nick Meyer was fifth.
Mike Smith survived the tornado that went through his home town area on Wednesday but he was the strongest gale throughout the IMCA Sunoco Hobby Stock feature as he dominated the entire 12-lap race.
Josh Sidles finished second followed by Brandon Nielsen, Carter Koop and Greg Sidles.
The Mach-1 Sport Compact feature began with a complete restart and then Jade Lange flew to the front on the first lap from the outside of row number four.
Lange never looked back as he won his first feature win of the season at the track. The battle of the race was for second place as Lucas Parsons and season point leader Kaytee Devries battled most of the race with Parsons taking second and Devries was third.
R.J. Esqueda came across the finish line in fourth place and Charles Prime was fifth.
