Hometown Fav Mitchell Coble Wins Another Friendship Feature

By Jason Buckley

In the professional ball-and-stick sports, having home field advantage is big.  While some think it can be more psychological, the advantage of playing the game where you know every aspect about the arena and have the hometown fans cheering you on can give a team just what they need to take the victory over the opposition.

Mitchell Coble lives just 30 minutes down the road from Friendship Motor Speedway (NC), a track he considers his home racing facility.  Coble spends countless hours at the track testing his Legends car, and it paid off again this weekend as he drove on to victory in a rare Friday night Legends event at the track.

Seven Legends cars showed up to race at Friendship, prompting officials to have the drivers run a qualifying session rather than a heat race.  Coble set fast time with a 16.632 second lap, besting “Big John” Ellenburg by three tenths.

When the race started, Coble took off and left the field.  The only chance Ellenburg had to catch Coble for the race win was a few late-race cautions, but he didn’t have his car handling the way he needed it to on the restarts.

Mitchell Coble dominated once again at Friendship, taking home another winner's trophy.  (LN Photo)

“I was way too loose,” said Ellenburg.  “On the starts I was too loose.  About three laps into the run I could stay with him, but he had a better car than me.  I was loosing the nose too much.”

With Ellenburg’s handling woes, Coble cruised on to another Friendship victory.

Both Ellenburg (top) and Penninger (bottom) attempted to catch Coble, but couldn't.  (LN Photos)

“It was pretty fun there at the end with those cautions,” said Coble.  “I had a pretty good lead built up and I was trying to save some energy for the Late Model race later on.  Then we had those cautions and the green/white/checkered.  I was a little worried because John is good on those starts.  I don’t know if I would call it being nervous, maybe a little bit.  I knew he had that great Chapman motor under the hood that would pull him on the starts.”

Behind the two leaders, Jordan Penninger attempted to move up and battle with them, but spun himself out trying to push the car harder than what it was capable of.  Still, he was able to get back up to third before the end of the race.

“I wish we could have been better, but we made a change to the car and went too far,” said Penninger.  “It was way too loose for me to drive it.  It just went around and there was no way to save that one.

“After that, I just moved my way through the field.  It was pretty easy.  We just need to get the setup better and get a little more track time.”

Still, the night belonged to Coble.  Whether the home town advantage helped him or not, Coble was thrilled to get another trophy in front of his family and fans.

“It feels real good to win this in front of the hometown fans,” said Coble.  “I have a lot of friends and family here.  It feels great to show performance like that in front of them.”

Results

1. #4 Mitchell Coble

2. #13 John Ellenburg

3. #7 Jordan Penninger

4. #28 Kyle Pierce

5. #21 TJ Hicks

6. #28 Charles Kiser

7. #165 Justin Grimes