Kochenash Holds Off All Challengers for Spring Zing 100 Win at Mahoning Valley

A dramatic Race of Champions Modified Series event at Mahoning Valley Speedway came down to the finish, as Austin Kochenash scored the victory in the Spring Zing 100.

Kochenash held off Blake Barney, Earl Paules and Matt Hirschman in a thrilling fight to the checkered flag, scoring his second career RoC win.

“We always have a good car here in the race,” said Kochenash in victory lane. “Qualifying and the heat race, we’re usually not that great. We have the speed here. Really, the last year and a half, we’ve had a real good car when we came.

Kochenash took the lead from Paules on a lap 81 restart, but Paules stayed with Kochenash the rest of the way. Soon, Blake Barney joined the fight after making some adjustments to his machine and charging his way through the field.

Barney narrowly edged ahead of Paules in a side-by-side battle for second at the finish line.

“We made a call to come in, rotate our tires and work on the car to try to get it better,” said Barney. “It ended up working out, so I couldn’t be happier. We had a car that was in contention to win.

“Congrats to Austin Kochenash, he drove a great race. I tried to get him at the end, but we were all so close. If I had run into the back of him, we would have all been everywhere breaking momentum. Just not enough on the bottom for me to get under him.”

“We had a really good car,” said Paules afer finishing third. “I gave it up on that one restart. I left too much of the track coming out of two.”

Hirschman finished fourth, recovering from a spin on lap 62 to salvage a top-five finish. Hirschman had won the RoC season opener at Mahoning Valley earlier this year. Zane Zeiner rounded out the top five.

The next stop for the Race of Champions Modified Series is the Ol’ Boy Cup VIII at Lancaster Speedway on June 27.

-Photo credit: MoJo Photos/Race of Champions Modified Series

SPRING ZING 100 UNOFFICIAL RESULTS