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NICK SCHWIEN •ÊHays Daily News Jesse Sobbing competes in a Northern sport mod heat race Tuesday night at RPM Speedway in Hays.

Sobbing survives to win sport mod feature

By NICK SCHWIEN

nschwien@dailynews.net

For a brief moment, Jesse Sobbing wasn't sure what was going to happen.

The Northern sport mod driver from Glenwood, Iowa, knew one thing though: He had nowhere else to go.

Sobbing was pinned against the wall in Tuesday night's feature at RPM Speedway in Hays as a car drifted up along the frontstretch. That car forced Sobbing to move a bit higher, scraping the wall.

Then the car hopped on top of Sobbing's, rearranging the sheet metal on his front end.

"I didn't know what the heck was going on," he said.

But Ben Kates' car came to rest after hopping back off Sobbing's front end and spinning to a stop. It provided a caution that proved to be a catalyst in Sobbing's victory.

Sobbing restarted second behind Trenton Kleweno and bolted low, taking the lead and then pulling away for the win.

"I wasn't expecting Jesse to get underneath me at all,"  Kleweno said. "The track was rough, and it was hard to run your line at times. It was just one of those nights. You have to roll with it."

Sobbing had to roll with it, too.

"The front end is messed up a little bit, but you just have to deal with that stuff," he said about the melee on the frontstretch.

Kates led the first seven laps before Kleweno battled his way from inside the second row to the top spot. Sobbing had worked into third at that point after starting ninth.

That's when everything got crazy for the Crazy 99 team of Sobbing, nearly ending his night. But he was able to survive and capitalized on the restart, taking the lead on lap nine and pulling away for a comfortable win.

"I've always run good out here, but this is actually my first win here,"  Sobbing said. "It's nice."

Kleweno finished second, followed by Tracy Holloway in third and Blaine Walt in fourth.