Henes MSA master at Kil Kare, gets second season win
By Todd Ridgeway
MSA PR
A first time visit to a new playground turned fun for Jon Henes as he became the first repeat winner
on the tour in 2010. Henes took his No. 36 family owned Supermodified to the front, battled all
challengers, and hung on to get his second seasons victory on the 2010 Midwest Supermodified
Association (MSA) campaign. Those challengers drove hard and fast lap after lap gunning for the
determined veteran leader. It was the first time the MSA had ever visited Kil Kare Speedway in
Xenia Ohio and 15 cars would take the green flag for the 30 lap feature race.
Randy Burch and Henes would bring the 15 car field to the drop of the green for the start only to
see the caution fly before the first lap could be completed when Bobby Dawson spun in turn one
scattering the field. In the confusion fast qualifier Charlie Schultz had some contact which caused
front end damage ending his night before one lap could be scored. Realigned and in formation the
field would once again take the start only to see another yellow flag before the first lap was in the
books. This time it was a whole may lay of cars spinning on the back stretch ending with Matt
Palmer against the outside wall ending his night. The third time was a charm as the field raced
through the first lap with Henes getting to the point. Henes tried to stretch the lead out setting a
blistering pace but the Stout team cars of Trent Stephens and Liquid Lou Cicconi would have
nothing to do with it. Cicconi and Stephens both where coming fast from their eighth and tenth
starting positions and by lap 15 were bearing down on the Henes 36. Tim Ice was also on the move
swinging through cars and coming to the front in his May Motorsports No. 77 entree. At lap 20
Stephens would spin and a yellow flag was displayed. Coming to the restart with just ten laps to go
it was Henes, Cicconi, and Ice. When the green dropped Cicconi instantly went to the inside and
blasted past Henes under the flag stand to nab the lead for the first time. As fate would have it the
yellow would once again be displayed as the new leader developed problems. Getting a push back
to the pit area Cicconi’s night came to an end with a broken race car after leading just one lap.
Giving the lead back to Henes the field would move into the final laps as Ice would now go to work.
Ice would go the outside and challenge for a couple laps pushing his red racer a nose in front.
However, Henes maintained the preferred line and was able to muscle the lead away from Ice as
the two made contact and raced very close. At the checkered flag it was Henes over Ice, with
Stephens coming from the tail to regain a third place finish followed by Gene Lee Gibson fourth
and Denny Fisher rounding out the top five. Dawson was sixth, Rich Reid seventh, Cicconi settled
for eighth, Brandon Fisher ninth, and Burch rounded out the top ten. The race was slowed by five
cautions and heat winners included Schultz and Denny Fisher. Schultz set fast time with a lap of
11.136.
“We showed up here and never been here before,” stated Henes. “It’s a neat little track, and I knew
the first time I got on it I’d like it. I couldn’t figure it out but, I knew once I did figure it out I would be
ok. It was just getting seat time and finding a groove I was comfortable in. We really didn’t adjust
the car all day. I told the guys earlier today I am not going fast enough to adjust the car, I can’t tell
you what it is doing. We are not going fast enough to make it push or make it loose. We just
thought we might hang around get a top five out of it and have a decent point’s night, put a little
money in our pocket. It couldn’t have turned out any better. We got as much money in our whole
car as ninety percent of these guys have in their engine. We put one tire on all day; the old tires just
seemed to work out good. We didn’t want to spend a bunch of money and the right rear worked out
good,” concluded the race winner.
Runner up Ice raced hard but for the second race in a row he came up just a little short. “I just
missed all that stuff on those couple starts and just couldn’t get going very good,” noted Ice.
“Once I got going the car was really good. I got to the outside of Henes for the lead two or three
times and down the backstretch with just two or three laps to go his car quit and just hesitated, I hit
him bending up my wing. Then I got tight in the front, I got up beside him all the way down the
backstretch and he got up into me in the corner, I just couldn’t clear him. But, good job for
everybody, it was great, we had a good car all day,” finished Ice.
“I had a real fast car, I know that,” said Stephens. “I started in the back and got all the way up to
third battling my teammate on the outside for second and then just lost it. I think I just got the rear
tires to hot and it just spun on me. So, I came back up through and I just lost the right rear. I was
just driving it too hard for to long. Tim and Jon where going at it, I seen them up there hit each other
a couple times. All in all a good night it’s all in one piece,” finished third place Stephens.