Essary Plays Cinderella At Langley

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Eric Essary showed up at Langley Speedway Tuesday night looking to continue his tutelage learning the intricacies of the Tour Modified stock car. Little did he know, or anyone else in the field know, that at the end of the night Essary would leave with his first victory in the YesterYear Racing League. "Things just kind of went my way throughout much of the night. Tom (Ogle)and Jerry (Isaacs) had given me a couple of good tips prior to the race. Things like never take four tires on pit stops, only two, And don't overdrive the car. These really helped me throughout the race," Essary said in his post-race interview. Essary took the lead with 16 laps to go and finished 1.46 seconds ahead of Chris Davis, who played the "long game" all night. "I was focused on taking care of my tires all night. I notice that the leaders would run away from me early in a run, but I would reel them back in as the run went on," Davis said after the race.

Points leader Tom Ogle ran into trouble on lap 60 of the 250-lap event after he and Brian Neff got together in turn 3. The two drivers have had a tumultuous relationship on the track over the last several "bull ring" races. With Ogle out, the door opened for drivers to close the 17-point lead Ogle had in the season standings. "Once Tom was spun, my race became a points race," Kenny Allen, who finished third, said in his post-race interview. Scott Negus also was able to pick up a slew of points as he came home in fourth place behind Allen. Unfortunately for some drivers, they could not capitalize on Tom's troubles. Brian Johnson went a lap down early and could never recover, while Todd Liston had connection issues and finished 62 laps down in 14th place.

The event saw only three caution and was a relatively calm affair for a bull ring like Langley. "It seemed a bit more tame out there tonight than any of the South Boston races. The field was smaller, but for the most part the race craft was there across most of the field. A 250-lap race run in 1 hour and 7 minutes is not bad," Allen Wannamaker, Founder of the YesterYear Racing League said after the race. The Series moves next to Oxford Plains Speedway for the Oxford 200. The race will take place on Tuesday, September 23, 2025, and will be broadcast live on the Virtual Grip Network.