In an outstanding weekend for our team, Coyote drivers stood atop the podium at MRP of South Bend during round 2 of the 2019 CKNA Champions Cup, a very well attended event that further illustrated this series’ growth over the past several years.
In all, Coyote racers would win eight of the 12 events with Blake Boon and Ryan Cassity each scoring two wins, and Josh Stiefel, Tim Stiefel and Jim Lipari each winning once.
The turnout of Coyotes did not disappoint, either, with over 20 drivers entered on a variety of Coyote models.
Masters
In the Masters division, a pair of “Tim’s” raced their Coyotes to solid weekends.
Veteran Tim Stiefel of Rochester, N.Y., romped to the feature win in Sunday’s Masters contest. Stiefel scored the victory over 11 competitors with another Coyote racer joining him on the podium in Tim Huss Jr. Huss would finish third, crossing the stripe less than one second back of Stiefel in a very close race. Steifel also drove his XP chassis to wins in both heat races Sunday while Huss qualified second overall and finishing in the top five in each of the four rounds of competition.
Saturday was a different story for Stiefel, as he would only muster a seventh place finish in the 12-lap feature. Huss again displayed his consistency throughout the course of the weekend with a fine third-place finish in Saturday’s final.
CIK Senior
Tim Stiefel’s extra motivation Sunday likely came from his son, Josh, who wheeled his Coyote XP to arguably the biggest win of his career in Saturday’s CIK Senior main event.
In an extremely competitive field of over 30 starters, Josh would lead fellow Coyote driver Scott Kleman across the finish line to seal the victory. Kleman finished 0.092 seconds back in second and South Carolina’s Chris Carroll would wheel his new 2019 Coyote Zenith to a strong fourth-place result, only 1.4 seconds back of Stiefel.
Coyote also topped Saturday’s CIK Senior qualifying session with Kleman and Carroll timing one-two and Stiefel rounding out the top five.
On Sunday, Josh wasn’t able to match his Saturday success, running into issues in the main event and finishing 18th. Kleman and Carroll would keep their top-five streak alive, taking finishes of third and fifth in the 12-lap main, respectively. Great job goes out to our drivers in CIK Senior!
Sportsman
The Sportsman division included four Coyote drivers and Blake Boon led the way with wins both days on his No. 22 Combat chassis. Blake raced at the front of the pack in every round of competition throughout the weekend and was able to come away with a pair of feature wins – his first wins of the CKNA season after barely missing out on victory in May at the Spring Nationals.
Boon would win Saturday’s Sportsman final by a comfortable 4-second margin. Jordan Cline had a very respectable run on her Coyote; she came home sixth of 14 starters. Joseph Bolen finished in the 10th position.
Blake backed up Saturday’s win with another victory in Sunday’s 12-lapper. In a close race, Boon would finish just 0.2 seconds ahead of his closest competition to solidify his double-win weekend. Cline finished seventh on this day with Joshua and Joseph Bolen finishing 13th and 14th, respectively.
Senior Medium and Senior Heavy
In the senior ranks, plenty of Coyotes entered the Senior Medium and Senior Heavy divisions, where either CIK or traditional 4-cycle sprint bodywork is permitted.
Ageless veteran Ryan Cassity continued his career of impressive driving and performances with another double-win weekend at MRP. Cassity rolled his Combat to wins in Saturday and Sunday’s Senior Medium finals. Six of the seven starters were on Coyotes in this class with Kyla Anderson third, Anthony DiMaggio fourth, Paul Dykstra fifth, Trentin Frederick sixth and Brandon White seventh.
On Sunday, Cassity would hit his marks again and take the win in the 12-lap Senior Medium event finale. Frederick would improve to fourth on this day with DiMaggio fifth, White sixth, Dykstra seventh and Anderson eighth.
Four of the 11 entrants in Senior Heavy competed on Coyote’s. On Saturday, Justin Wishard claimed the top spot for Coyote drivers with his second-place finish. Wishard’s No. 20 crossed the finish stripe right ahead of Jim Lipari’s Combat. Ryan Heaslip finished seventh and Chris Cirillo had problems after finishing top five in both heat races and was credited with 10th in the feature.
Lipari would return Sunday to score the win in Senior Heavy to give Coyote drivers seven wins on the weekend. Wishard finished fourth, Heaslip again took seventh and Cirillo was 10th for the second consecutive day.
Junior
Four drivers entered Coyote’s in the Junior category and Logan Graham led the way for our group. Graham improved his position through each round of competition throughout Saturday and ended up with a strong third-place finish in the 12-lap final. On Sunday, Graham would match his Saturday finish with another fine P3 result. Just like Saturday, Graham would improve his position throughout each round of competition and find himself on the podium for the second consecutive day.
Other Junior drivers on Coyotes were Joey Cline, Griffin Kimbrel and Mary Badgley.
In Saturday’s Junior feature, Cline would finish 11th, Kimbrel 15th and Badgley 16th. Sunday’s Junior main event saw Cline finish 12th, Kimbrel 14th and Badgley again in 16th.
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