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Two top-10 finishes for Minnesota’s Thomas & Gierke during night two at East Bay
From Jordan DeLucia, DIRTcar Racing and
All The Dirt! Racing News Staff Reports
TAMPA, FL (January 30) - A repeat winner, a first-time winner and the defending Winternationals champion all made appearances in East Bay Raceway Park victory lane Tuesday in the second night of triple-25 features.
Monday night winner Austin Holcombe, DIRTcar UMP Modified newcomer and Wisconsinsite Cole Czarneski, and two-time and defending Winternationals Championship feature winner Lucas Lee each shined the brightest in their respective groups, winning by considerable distances and collecting a bit of momentum as the weeklong event pushes forward into the halfway point.
It was a great night as well for Villard, Minnesota’s Ryan Gierke, who scored a top-10, advancing from 13th on the grid to ninth at the stripe in Feature 1. In Feature 3, Gierke’s Florida teammate Joseph Thomas, of Glyndon, Minnesota, also showed speed, making his way from 15th to seventh. Sun River, Montana’s Michael Leach was 14th in Feature 3 during his first night in competition.
Feature 1
Less than 24 hours after scoring his first career East Bay Winternationals win, Austin Holcombe backed it up with his second-straight checkered flag in two nights at the historic 1/3-mile oval.
“Shoutout to my guys, we keep plugging away at it,” Holcombe said. “I felt like we were even better tonight. I know the track was a little different because we were in the first group, but it was elbows-up, wide open. I’m exhausted.”
Holcombe grabbed the lead on the opening lap from the outside pole and never looked back, leading all 25 laps en route to the win. Even with pressure from Will Krup and Chris Wilson behind him on restarts, Holcombe never flinched. He’s now the only driver with a perfect two-for-two record on the week.
“We just treat it as another race,” Holcombe said. “We want to keep going forward, keep getting better, and we really don’t let the pressure get to us. That’s when you start making mistakes and letting the little things get to you.”
Feature 2
Cole Czarneski had never driven UMP-style Modified until his Speedweeks campaign started last week at North Florida Speedway. Three races in, and he’s already a feature winner.
The 18-year-old from Denmark, WI, made the 1,300-plus mile trip south to Florida to be a part of East Bay’s final presentation of Winternationals. He’s a dirt Modified regular around home and has had plenty of seat time competing with his local and regionally sanctioned groups, but in 2024 decided to venture out the DIRTcar world and compete with the best in the UMP Modified ranks.
Right away, Czarneski spotted the differences between his usual Modified configuration and the UMP style and made quick work adapting to it.
“We’ve got a lot more power in this car; this is only my third race, and they’ve all been this week,” Czarneski said. “You really gotta drive these things. I like to drive my car nice and smooth, and you’ve really gotta get on the throttle on these things. You’ve got a lot of motor versus that crate car; you can really throttle out of some stuff especially when the track’s pretty heavy if you get tight.”
His quick learning came in handy Tuesday at East Bay when faced with the task of regaining the lead from outside polesitter, Michael Turner. Turner had taken the lead at the drop of the green and looked strong out front, leading the first 10 laps of the feature.
But when the field went back to green after a caution on lap 11, Czarneski found the top side to his liking and pinned the throttle through turns one and two, to build a run down the backstretch. Through turns three and four, he and Turner stayed close, but Czarneski had the momentum on the top out of turn four and took the lead away at the start/finish line.
“I almost got there on that first restart,” Czarneski said. “I caught [Turner’s] quarter panel a little bit when he came sliding through. I knew on that second one I wanted to pick the top again and get a good run because the more I arced it in there, the better it was getting.”
Now in control of the field, Czarneski stayed strong on all following restarts and led the field back around to the checkers to secure the win.
Feature 3
The defending UMP Modified Florida Speedweeks champion is back in victory lane at East Bay.
Lucas Lee dominated Feature 3, leading all 25 laps nearly unchallenged to bag his sixth career Winternationals win.
“After we got going and I found I could move out and step back down, the car was really good,” Lee said. “At first, I was sliding too much on entry and kinda hurting me. After I got to moving out a little bit and cutting down, I’d launch off the corner if I hit the bottom right. It drove itself pretty good.”
On Monday night, Lee was bested by Jason Garver by a wide margin. Tuesday was a different story, as Lee looked far more maneuverable out front – something he attributes to a better tire choice.
“Last night, I put a 60 on in the first group, and it was a dumb move,” Lee said. “Tonight, we went with a 30 and I felt my car the whole time.”
SUMMARY
UMP Modifieds:
A Feature 1 (25 Laps): 1. 8A-Austin Holcombe[2]; 2. K9-Will Krup[3]; 3. 17-Chris Wilson[1]; 4. 25W-Allen Weisser[12]; 5. M20-Mike Potosky[11]; 6. 9-Cory Balkey[16]; 7. 64-Austin Sanders[6]; 8. 23Z-Austin Self[14]; 9. 26G-Ryan Gierke[13]; 10. 19A-Thomas Sigler[21]; 11. 1W-Brian Wilburn[17]; 12. 81-Jeremy Owens[19]; 13. 1XX-Oscar McCown[4]; 14. A85-Brandon Hutchinson[10]; 15. 97G-Jason Crose[22]; 16. 3F-Rob Fuqua[9]; 17. 101-Hunter Feltner[7]; 18. 0L-Mason Love[23]; 19. 64M-Tim McCafferty[20]; 20. 10X-Billy Uptegraff[8]; 21. 11R-Jeremy Rayburn[5]; 22. 27-Beau DeYoung[15]; 23. 16H-Justin Hart[18]; 24. (DNS) 75R-Jason Russell
A Feature 2 (25 Laps): 1. 21CZ-Cole Czarneski[1]; 2. 27T-Michael Turner[2]; 3. 77-Ray Bollinger[6]; 4. 99J-Treb Jacoby[3]; 5. S21-Seth Daniels[4]; 6. 37-Devin Wright[12]; 7. 8C-Corey Bevard[9]; 8. 25-Josh Lolmaugh[19]; 9. 14-Skyler Douglas[14]; 10. 15K-Chris Kittle[18]; 11. 6B-Dave Baldwin[8]; 12. 77C-Jason Cox[20]; 13. 4-Mike Halliday[21]; 14. 14C-Rick Conoyer[17]; 15. 11-Tyler Morehouse[16]; 16. 05-Dave Wietholder[15]; 17. 7-Brad Deyoung[10]; 18. 43J-Jacob Hall[13]; 19. 16C-John Clippinger[7]; 20. 21S-Denny Schwartz[5]; 21. 82-Gary Dillon[11]; 22. 98-Shawn Vaughn[23]; 23. 15R-Paul Rivall[22]; 24. (DNS) 24-Zeke McKenzie
A Feature 3 (25 Laps): 1. 12L-Lucas Lee[2]; 2. 33W-Rodney Wing[5]; 3. 20-Brian Skaggs[4]; 4. 8-Jimmy Lennex[8]; 5. 72-Todd Neiheiser[12]; 6. 88-David Pollen[11]; 7. 6ST-Joseph Thomas[15]; 8. 14M-Mavrick Varnadore[20]; 9. 1H-Ben Harmon[10]; 10. 4SA-Kevin DeYoung[17]; 11. 18C-Miles Cook II[7]; 12. 14L-Dalton Lane[16]; 13. 99-Wade Olmsted[19]; 14. 09-Michael Leach[6]; 15. 0NO-Jamie Layton[23]; 16. 119-Josh Sigler[24]; 17. 0-Damian Kiefer[18]; 18. 54H-Zachary Hawk[14]; 19. 333-Wade Rookard[22]; 20. 12-Jeff Parsons[13]; 21. E85-Jesse Strange[21]; 22. 87Z-George Zieman[9]; 23. 8S-Kyle Strickler[1]; 24. 27G-Jason Garver[3]