LAKE CITY, Mich. — Last year, Eric Spangler made all the right moves in the Wood Tic Memorial at Merritt Speedway minus the literal homestretch, when Rusty Schlenk upended what would have otherwise been a dominant victory by the veteran Spangler in a photo finish. 

Sometimes it’s better to play the part of hunter rather than run frantic as the hunted. On Saturday in the 34th running of the Wood Tic event, Spangler demonstrated just that and in turn starred as the night’s main character, as the veteran surged to the $34,000 prize from the 12th-starting spot in a race he left no doubt.

Spangler stormed by DirtonDirt.com's eighth-ranked driver in Devin Moran on lap 28 and never looked back in the 75-lap main event he won by 1.597 seconds. Moran, who led the first 27 laps, finished second while 22nd-starting Ryan Unzicker placed third.

“I can tell you one thing, the MasterSbilt was extremely well tonight,” Spangler said. “We touched on a few things a few weeks go here. We ran really good and lost it on the last lap a couple times, but not tonight.”

Spangler’s won his share of five-figure paydays before, but nothing of comparison to Saturday’s rich reward. Doing so after a lackluster start to the event — qualifying sixth of nine cars in his group and a 16th-to-sixth drive in Friday’s semifeature — added an extra sense of reward.

Beating the event’s top two invaders in Moran and Unzicker to win the prize on Michigan’s home soil amplified the feat, too.

“This is the biggest payday I’ve ever had. There’s a great field of cars here for this weekend,” Spangler said. “We qualified terrible. Started sixth in our heat and finished sixth. Then we moved up in the (semifeature) and still had to start 12th in this thing. The car was fine. We had 30s (tire compound) on all four corners. I saw a few guys with 40s on, but mostly everyone had 30s on all four corners. Everybody knew the track was going to get prepped before we went out there. It was right on the schedule. I can’t say enough about our crew tonight.”

Nobody seriously threatened Spangler once he raced past Moran off turn four on lap 28. Spangler attributes the unshakable drive to victory to his team’s attentiveness, extolling that  his “car was just perfect.”

“We had all our T’s crossed and our I's dotted,” Spangler said. “I think we got her done well.” 

The first thing Moran thinks of, however, was tire choice. Spangler went with a softer compound as opposed to Moran, who didn’t antiquate track officials to thoroughly water the racing surface moments before showtime. Still, Moran thought he was a runner-up car.

“He had a little bit difference tire choice then what we did,” Moran said. “First and (Unzicker) and both did. Just went out on the track and it was super black. Then they soaked it. It’s just one of them deals. He was better than us anyways. I felt like I couldn’t steer very good, then I was super free on exit. Just the way it goes."

Of the six cautions throughout a feature that spanned 37 minutes, Moran’s best shot to overtake Spangler was on the restart with 18 laps to go. Spangler appeared to fire off slowly, which allowed Moran to draw alongside the eventual winner barreling into turn one. Spangler, as he did all race, aligned his No. 27 machine to the top side and took off.

As for Moran, since the start was jumbled, he thought if he passed Spangler for the lead that the restart would at the very least get flagged back.

Not many other doors opened for Moran or anyone else to enter the winning conversation. Unzicker, on the other hand, salvaged a decent payday in third after needing a provisional just to start the main event.

Unzicker led his heat race Friday until breaking an oil pump four laps into the 10-lap heat that sidelined the rest of his preliminary night. The El Paso, Ill., driver only wished for one thing, and that was to at least have one shot at the lead on Saturday, which never materialized because he started so deep in the field.

“That’s the thing. We were really good in the beginning, throughout the whole race up until 20 to go, it started thinning out,” Unzicker said. “I think if we could have started up there, I think we could have been challenging for the lead. No doubt, 100 percent. We had a lot of speed there through lap 10 through probably 50 or 60, and that’s where we made a lot of our ground up.

“Just like any race, late in the race, it thins out a little bit. It gets harder to pass. But I’m happy to get up to third. I’m glad they let me in for fast-time provisional. It was a good weekend for us to come out here and finish third. I hate to see what happened in the heat race because I would have liked to start up front.”

Notes: Twentieth-starting Greg Gokey of Buckland, Mich., advanced 15 positions and finished fifth. ... After winning the Wood Tic event in 2020, Travis Stemler of Ionia, Mich., advanced eight positions and finished sixth. ... After starting 24th, Dave Baker of Grand Rapids, Mich., advanced 16 positions and finished eighth. ... After making contact with Ryan Unzicker while racing inside the top-five on lap 55, Brandon Thirlby of Traverse City, Mich., was sent to the back and recovered to finish ninth. ... Six-time Wood Tic event winner Dona Marcoullier of Houghton Lake, Mich., had nowhere to go when Unzicker spun and made heavy contact, relegating him to finish 12th. ... Polesitter Jeep Van Wormer of Pinconning, Mich., failed to lead a lap and jumped the cushion in turn one on lap 44, dropping him to finish 11th. ... Defending Wood Tic event winner, Rusty Schlenk of McClure, Ohio, broke a distributor belt on his car during pace laps and was unable to start the race, relegating him to finish 28th. ... Saturday's feature, the 34th annual Wood Tic, an Allstar Performance Challenge Series event was slowed by six cautions and lasted 37 minutes, with 14 competitors completing all 75 laps. … The Dan Salay Memorial honored the former racer and crew chief of Brandon Thirlby. Salay passed away in 2017 after a short bout with Cancer. Salay spent seven seasons working with Thirlby and his younger brother Collin as a truck driver and mechanic.