Houk paces strong Kenyon Midget contingent at Rumble
Ayrton Houk in the 3K Racing #6 midget (photo by Top Row Racing Media)
By Ken de la Bastide
FORT WAYNE – Former Kenyon Midget champion Ayrton Houk turned in a strong performance at the Rumble in Fort Wayne.
The one-sixth mile circuit inside the Fort Wayne Coliseum is dependent on the racing groove. Although the Kenyon Midgets were down on horsepower the other competitors were aware of their presence.
Houk, driving for Don and Mel Kenyon, finished second in a heat race on Friday to advance to the feature and drove to a sixth place finish.
On Saturday Houk finished third in his heat race, but advanced to the main event with a second place finish in the last chance race. After starting 12th in the feature, Houk scored a podium finish.
“We started 12th or 13th, so there was a lot of work to do,” Houk said. “There were a lot of hard fought battles. The Kenyon's gave me a great car and I got to work with Nick Hamilton and gained a lot of experience.”
Hamilton finished fifth in both the heat and B feature on Friday and showed speed on Saturday during a practice session. He finished third in his heat race and fifth in the B feature after being involved in an early race incident while running in a transfer spot.
Hamilton finished second in the Second Chance race for non-qualifiers.
“It's hard to get around here,” Hamilton said. “We didn't get very many laps. Worked hard on the car trying to figure it out.”
Jackson Macenko finished sixth in the Friday night heat race and seventh in the B feature.
On Saturday Macenko finished sixth in the heat race and eighth in the B feature.
He drove to a fourth place finish in the Second Chance race.
“Last night the track really rubbered in,” Macenko said of Friday's racing. “Tonight the rubber is mostly gone and just put my head down and race hard.”
Lee Pierce finished seventh in the Friday heat race and eighth in the Last Chance qualifier.
He finished seventh again in his Saturday heat race and sixth in the Last Chance qualifier. Lee finished eighth in the Second Chance race.
Landon Brown finished seventh in his Friday night heat race, but was involved in a lap one accident in the B main which ended his weekend early.