Casey Roderick wins ASA STARS Glass City 200

Casey Roderick cemented his place as the presumptive ASA STARS national tour champion with a victory in the Glass City 200 on Saturday night at Toledo Speedway.

It wasn’t just that the Anthony Campi No. 26 won but that Campi took it to the finish line first for all but seven laps. Specifically, he led the first 182 laps but got a frantic challenge on that Lap 183 restart, where he was first called for a restart violation and then lost the led to Gio Ruggiero and needed to fend off Gavan Boschele too.

Roderick retook the lead on Lap 190 and ultimately won the race by 1.3 seconds over Ruggiero.  

“A little rough driving on those restarts,” said Roderick. “I get jacked up from behind. The second-place guy tried to jump the start there. I jumped the one and they called it back, but they never called his back. I don’t know what to say. I try to do right but sometimes you’ve just got to do what you’ve got to do.

“I passed them back clean, never touched anyone, then he wants to jack me up going into one. I don’t know what his deal is, but I raced him clean all day.”

Ruggiero called the race a ‘dog fight’ and said his car just got too tight at the end to reel Roderick back in.

“I tried my all,” Ruggiero said. “This team tried it’s all and brought their best. The second place is something to build off of heading into big race season.”

He also needed to overcome a flat tire that forced him to drive back up through the field.

“We fought through it and that’s why I’m really excited for these big races coming up. I want to scratch off the races I didn’t win last year and repeat in some of the ones I did. One spot better in the Snowball Derby for sure.”

Boschele took responsibility for the contact with Roderick.

“We were definitely really good,” said Boschele. “Not sure if we had anything for Casey. It was a good, successful first trip. Hopefully, when we come back next year, we can be two spots better. I can’t thank all these Wilson guys enough, they gave me a great car tonight.

“I had a really good start that last one, and I accidentally picked Casey’s tires up off the ground, I think he spun them a little bit. Other than that, it was a pretty good race. A little bit rough, but hopefully the fans enjoyed it.”

Billy VanMeter, fresh off a UARA win earlier in the week at Owosso, was involved in a series of incidents throughout the race. One included Matt Tifft, making his first pavement start since his NASCAR retirement in 2019, on Lap 47 and also included Evan Shotko.

Then on Lap 182, VanMeter connected with Brian Campbell and collected Chase Burda.

Tifft and the VanMeter crew were involved in a post-race scuffle that left the former Cup racer bloodied.

Dawson Sutton also had a hard hit with the foam barrier when he lost a tire on the Rackley WAR No. 26.