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the PITS 2010
Central PA
Central PA Racing.....by Brad Vores
...Kreitz Passing the Reign to
Ryan Smith, Sort of... When the green flag drops on the
season opener at Williams Grove Speedway in
about 11 weeks, there will be a noticeable
change in the stables of the Kreitz Racing team. The familiar blue and orange car
will still be in the pit area but a much younger
face will look through the cockpit of a No. 69
(less the “K”) sprint car and his name is Ryan
Smith. But that doesn’t exactly mean
that Don Kreitz, Jr. is retiring from 410 sprint
car racing either. He really doesn’t have a set
plan but he knows one thing, he’s not ready to
hang up the helmet just yet. Kreitz, Smith and friend and
sponsor Todd Lieto of Lieto Brothers Motorsports
have formed this new team that will see Smith
pilot the car during most or all events at
Williams Grove Speedway in 2012. Kreitz will run
a handful of shows, some at the Grove and a few
other tracks and Kreitz’s daughter Kassidy will
be getting a first hand lesson from Kreitz’s new
driver as she will strap into the seat of a
Slingshot for racing later this year at Kutztown
Speedway. “I’m definitely not retiring and
I really don’t know if I will ever actually
retire,” said Kreitz, a four-time Williams Grove
track champion and the winningest local driver
against the World of Outlaws at the speedway.
“I’m not putting together a schedule or anything
but I will always have my car ready to go should
there be a night when I just want to race. It
may be six, 10 or 12 races, we really don‘t
know.” Kreitz is looking forward to
having Smith pilot the Kreitz Racing sprint car
this season. “He’s a good driver, a really
good kid and I see a lot of myself in the way he
races,” Kreitz said of the 23-year-old from
Kunkletown, PA. “Todd Lieto put the whole deal
together and we’ll show up at the track and see
how things go. We will maintain Ryan’s car at my
shop with my crew and Davey Brown will continue
to be the crew chief. I’m really looking forward
to seeing what Ryan can do with a 410.” Smith needs no introduction to
the racing community as he has raced just about
anything with four wheels since the age of 12.
And it’s no secret that Smith is more than
excited about the new opportunity this season. “It’s the perfect deal with
Donnie and Davey Brown,” said Smith, who will be
heading to the Chili Bowl in Oklahoma next week.
“It’s not a big money team and we will be on a
week to week budget but it’s going to be a real
fun deal. Donnie said to me “I see you in myself
20 years ago” and that’s pretty cool because we
know what all he’s done in a sprint car. It’s a
low pressure deal and we’re gonna go out there
and feel things out, hope they go smooth and
hopefully we can run for points at the Grove. It
won’t get any better than that.” Smith actually piloted a 410
Sprint car for Heffner Racing when that team
first got its start several years ago but that
deal didn’t work out for both parties. Smith, who is a National
Champion in Slingshots and in the Ford Focus
Series, has tons of feature wins in all of the
divisions he’s competed in, hopes to add a 410
sprint car win to his impressive resume in 2012. While he will concentrate his
driving on the 410 sprint car along with midget
racing this season, Smith will use his technical
skills to help develop and teach Kassidy Kreitz
the ropes of Slingshot racing. Lieto, a New York businessman
and race car owner has been a long time
supporter and friend of Kreitz. When he knew the veteran driver
was looking to scale back his racing schedule,
Lieto knew of the perfect fit for the team so he
went to work. “I knew Donnie wanted to cut
back and I told him that Ryan would be the
perfect guy to drive his car,” he said. “Donnie
said there’s no better guy I’d put in my car.
Ryan drives a lot like Donnie and he’s very
smart and has a demeanor a lot like Donnie does.
We both saw that in him. It’s the perfect deal
for Ryan to get his start. I mean he has Donnie
Kreitz who is going to be in the Hall of Fame
and Davey Brown who already is in the Hall of
Fame on his side. What more could anyone ask
for? I think Donnie picked the right guy for
sure.” Lieto will be a major sponsor on
all three race cars along with Kreitz’s familiar
group of sponsors-Henry R. Sharman Builders, RV
Workshop.com, Leroy Schannauer Heating and
Plumbing and Rico Motorsports. This is a win-win for all
parties involved in the Kreitz Racing stables
this season. Upstart driver Ryan Smith gets
the chance of a lifetime, veteran Don Kreitz,
Jr. can remain active as a driver and field a
car whenever he wants and his daughter Kassidy
begins her racing career with a Hall of Fame
father and a kid that has proven he can win in
just about anything by her side. And on a personal note, thanks
to Kreitz for keeping the familiar colors of the
No. 69 on the track at Williams Grove even if he
isn‘t the driver. It’s definitely one of the
cars that will forever remain in the great
history of Williams Grove Speedway.
They say change is always
good. And of course that depends on who you talk
to.
By Brad Vores
And after many years of handicapping of 410 Sprint car events at Williams Grove and Lincoln Speedway’s, fans could be in for something a little different when the 2012 racing season comes around.
According to officials at both speedways, plans are currently underway to change the lineup procedure for regular handicapped (non time trial) shows next season.
For many seasons, heats and features have been lined up according to a driver’s point average at Lincoln and by average money earned at Williams Grove.
With the new plan, this will change for heat races only and the normal handicapping system for the feature event will remain the same based on average points or average money earned.
Drivers will draw upon entering the speedway each week for a regular show. Drivers will then be lined up in their heat races according to the pill draw but heat races will be seated according to the average point/money earned. This means that heat races will not be stacked with the top drivers in one heat.
They will be staggered based on the pill draw and their average for each specific track.
For example, if there are three heats scheduled on a certain evening and going into that night, Brian Montieth has the highest point average, Danny Dietrich has second highest point average and Brian Leppo has third highest point average, those three drivers will be in separate heat races.
The same amount of cars will qualify with a certain number of cars being handicapped for the feature, which will remain the same as years past.
Port Royal Speedway underwent a new management role this past season and the drivers drew for starting spot every week for the heat races and then certain drivers redrew for the feature. Port Royal officials have been presented with the new format with hopes of all three tracks having a uniformed procedure. There is no word on what direction Port Royal will take in 2012.
According to Williams Grove General Manager Justin Loh, the bonus program for 410 sprint car features will remain in affect in 2012 despite the lineup change.
And despite rumors, Williams Grove and Lincoln will not use double file restarts next year like the World of Outlaws.
Loh also said that the 358 Sprint car payoff will be slightly increased for the upcoming season but it will remain at $1,000 to win with the additional increases hitting spots in the middle of the field.
Wing sliders in the 358 sprint car division will be legal in 2012 at Williams Grove.
Lawrence Chevrolet returns as the title sponsor for the 410 Sprint car division again in 2012 and the championship team will again earn $20,000.
Loh said that the track will be cutting back the number of spots it pays in the final points to the 12 instead of the top 24.
The track already announced that their will be no banquet next year but Loh said plans have not been finalized as to how the speedway will honor its champions and top point finishers.
Williams Grove Speedway opens for action on Friday night, March 23 and the track is also planning a Test and Tune session on Sunday, March 18 for all divisions.
According to Don Leiby, one of the three promoter/owners at Lincoln, he does not feel the All Star Circuit of Champions East race at Florida’s Bubba Raceway Park on February 25, the same date as Lincoln’s planned season opener, will have much affect on the track. He knows the track may lose a few cars but he also mentioned that should Lincoln hit a home run with weather that weekend, the track may draw some cars that might not normally compete in the area.
PIT STOPS
John and Peewee Zemaitis, owners of Zemco Speed Equipment announced last week that Sam Hafertepe, Jr. will be the new driver of their Zemco sprint car beginning in 2012. Hafertepe, who hails from Texas will run a 55 race schedule for the team and will fill in other events in his family owned car. The team will start with the All Star events in Georgia and Florida in February.
Daryn Pittman will return to the Mike Heffner Racing sprint car team again in 2012 and the team plans to run a similar schedule as this past season. I do believe Pittman competed in the most races of any sprint car driver in the country in 2011. The Heffner No. 27 is currently on its way for competition in Australia.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
The Central Pennsylvania silly season has been in full affect recently and now we know what two sprint car teams in Central Pennsylvania will be doing when the 2012 racing season rolls around.
Perhaps what could be touted as the top ride in Central PA, Carlisle car owners Jesse and Lorraine Keen, owners of the Keen Motorsports No. 17 sprint car team announced last week that New Oxford’s Brian Leppo will pilot the Peterbilt, Hunter Truck Sales sprinter next season.
Joining Leppo on the team will be crew chief Steve Suchy and the team looks to be fast right out of the box.
“I’m thrilled to assemble the ultimate team that I’ve envisioned for a couple of years now,” said Jesse Keen. “I’ve never really had the right driver/crew chief combination and now I feel like I have the right driver with the right crew chief and I’m really looking forward to the new season.”
Leppo is equally excited about 2012.
“I’m really looking forward to one of the best opportunities I’ve been faced with in racing,” he said. “Jesse is a top shelf car owner and Steve is a top shelf crew chief.”
Leppo has driven for car owner Floyd Swope for the past five seasons and Swope will be retiring as a car owner but will become a sponsor for Leppo’s new endeavor next season.
Mechanicsburg’s Kevin Nouse has been hired to drive the Dietz Motorsports No. 14 sprint car next season with a Saturday night concentration on Lincoln Speedway.
Nouse, who drove for John Pinter and Gary Beam in a total of 10 races last season said “the Dietz family puts a lot of effort into their racing program and I am honored that they asked me to drive for them.”
The Dietz Motorsports team has been a regular at Lincoln for the past few seasons with Doug Dodson and Brent Marks as drivers.
“Kevin has proved himself to be a winner in whatever he drives and we are hoping to take our team to the next level with him,” Chris Dietz stated.
With these two rides filled, that leaves the potent Zemco Speed Equipment No. 1 seat yet to be announced but I’d expect that announcement will be made shortly.
HODNETT IS THE CHAMP
Thomasville’s Greg Hodnett is the 2011 Speedway Motors Central PA Sprint car point series champion for the third straight season.
Hodnett took over when Lance Dewease was injured and will collect the $4,000 top prize at the York County Racing Club banquet in January.
The top 10 drivers were Hodnett, Dewease, Fred Rahmer, Brian Montieth, Danny Dietrich, Daryn Pittman, Justin Henderson, Brian Leppo, Chad Layton and Aaron Ott. All 10 drivers will receive point fund money from the series.
BANQUETS
Williams Grove and Selinsgrove Speedway honored its champions and top drivers at banquets last weekend.
The Williams Grove banquet will be the final awards banquet as track management will opt for a different route beginning next year due to the lack of interest.
Lance Dewease and car owners Donny and Lisa Owens received the big $20,000 payday from the Lawrence Chevrolet point fund for their 2011 championship in the 410 sprints while Pat Cannon and the Zane and Vicki Highlands owned team were honored as 358 Sprint car champions. Carlisle’s Frankie Herr was the Super Sportsman champion while Gene Knaub was the 358 late model champ and Newville’s Doug Hoffman captured the street stock title.
Leppo won the Sportsmanship Award in Memory of Jerry Reigle while Nicole Bower was named Rookie of the Year, Matt Cramer was Mechanic of the Year and Cory Haas was named Most Improved Driver.
Special awards on the Saturday Night Series were presented to Cody Fairchok as the Sportsman Rookie of the Year while Sportsmanship awards went to Lanny Hake (Sportsman), Pancho Lawler (late models) and Craig Morgan (street stocks). Most Improved awards went to Jared Miller (Sportsman), Lori Croop (street stocks) and Todd Leonard (late models). Steve Clabaugh was the late model Rookie of the year.
PIT STOPS
The final weekend of racing is in the books from
last weekend as Daryn Pittman won the $10,000 30-lap
Sprint car portion of the Octoberfest 180 at
Hagerstown Speedway on Sunday. Pittman defeated Fred
Rahmer, Mark Smith, Danny Dietrich and Cody Darrah.
Josh Richards was a first time Octoberfest winner in
the late models over Ronnie Dehaven, Jr., Jamie
Lathroum, Booper Bare and Dylan Yoder. Brett Hearn
won both the big block and small block modified
features. Hagerstown cut the laps for each feature
and also cut the payoffs but Ernie Davis of Ernie
D’s Enterprises, owner of Josh Richards’ late model
added the balance of the purse to bring it to the
advertised payoffs.
Don Kreitz, Jr. and Pat Cannon were feature winners at Susquehanna Speedway on Saturday.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
Two area speedway’s will close the curtain on its 2011 racing season this weekend as the two regular 410 sprint car tracks also flip-flip race nights.
Lincoln and Williams Grove Speedway’s close the season with big racing programs this weekend, however, Lincoln will present its final show Friday night while the Grove concludes with a Saturday night program.
The rescheduled 59th Anniversary John Gleim, Jr. Excavating Night is on tap at Lincoln with Twin 20’s for 410 Sprints along with the Central PA Legends on the card. This event was rained out back in August.
Each sprint car feature will pay $2,700 to win and if one driver can sweep both features, he earns a $500 bonus, which will make it a $5,900 payday for that driver.
Williams Grove ends its season with the annual FallFest on Saturday night featuring all four major divisions that compete at the track each week.
The 358 Sprints will also have a makeup feature Saturday night to decide the 2011 track championship. Pat Cannon is seeking his fourth career Grove title and leads Logan Schuchart by 230 points and just has to start the feature event to lock the title.
The makeup 358 sprint feature will start the program at 7pm followed by the Super Sportsman feature, the SpeedStr feature, the regular 358 sprint car feature, the 410 Sprint car feature and the 358 late models will be the final event for the 2011 racing season at Williams Grove.
Drivers accepting invites for the 410 Sprint car main as of Tuesday night were Brian Montieth, Fred Rahmer, Doug Esh, Greg Hodnett, Chad Layton, Danny Dietrich, Steve Buckwalter, Cory Haas, Justin Henderson, Brent Marks, Daryn Pittman, Brian Leppo, Adam Wilt, Troy Fraker, Tim Glatfelter, Jay Reichard, Davey Sammons and Bob Howard.
A full field of Super sportsman drivers will be in attendance with the roster made up of 2011 champion Frankie Herr, Carmen Perigo, Jr., Scott Dellinger, Russ Mitten, Jay Fannasy, Rich Eichelberger, Rick Barr, Paul Miller, Mike Enders, Dave Socks, Eric Walker, Bobby Hockenberry, John Garman, Chris Meleason, Scott Geesey, Steve Wilbur, Dave Berkheimer, Cody Fairchok, Lanny Hake, Jim Shuster, Stan Wanner, Leroy Martin, Scott Snyder and Pete Lattanzio.
As of Tuesday, only 12 358 late model drivers have committed including track champ Gene Knaub, Charlie Schaffer, Wes Alleman, DJ Mease, Travis Mease, Derrick Zirkle, Steve Clabaugh, John Ebersole, Todd Leonard and Bernie Beard.
The 358 sprint car roster has been completed for the Fallfest as Pat Cannon, Logan Schuchart, Adrian Shaffer, Nate Hammaker, Chad Trout, Scott Geesey, Davey Franek, Tim Berkheimer, Glenndon Forsythe, Rich Eichelberger, Michael Ruttkamp, Brian Garland, Ted Thomas, Jay Galloway, Eric Tomecek, Rodney Westhafer, Kyle Purks, Brie Hershey, Kyle Moody, Aaron Eichelberger, Billy Schoffstall, Todd Reed, Dale Hammaker and TJ Stutts will comprised the lineup. Westhafer and Tomecek make up row number one in the makeup feature.
Five Goodyear tires will be given away in the 410 Sprint car division -one to the feature winner and the Hard Charger while the feature winner will then draw three random finishing positions for three additional tires. Also, 50 Goodyear hats will be given to the first 25 paying grandstand admissions on the front stretch and the first 25 paying grandstand admissions on the back stretch.
Anyone interesting in attending the upcoming Williams Grove awards banquet should contact the speedway for tickets. Those attending will be part of the final banquet at the Radisson as the track will go a different route in 2012 with honoring its top drivers. Due to declining interest, this will be the last banquet.
Williams Grove joins Hagerstown and Bedford Speedway’s along with the URC Sprint Company to not have banquets this season.
PIT STOPS
The 8th annual Miller’s Racing Parts Fall Classic is on tap this weekend at Susquehanna Speedway Park featuring Street Stocks, Xtreme Stocks and Four Cylinders. The 50-lap street stock feature will pay $2,500 to win. Friday night will feature all qualifying events with features on Saturday. Dan Zechman is the defending Fall Classic winner and is also the leading winner this season at the track.
Sam Gallagher wrapped up the 2011 Lincoln Speedway thundercar title last weekend and will move into the 358 late models next season. While Gallagher held a big lead in points, second through fifth in final track points were separated by just 50 points.
Jason Meyers made it five straight wins on the World of Outlaws sprint car tour with a win at Fremont Speedway last weekend. He scored the win over Kerry Madsen, Bryan Sebetto, Donny Schatz and Craig Dollanksy. Meyers will look to make it six straight this weekend as the Outlaws are in action at the Sage Fruit Showdown at the Talladega Short Track in Alabama.
Stevie Smith informed car owners John and Peewee Zemaitis that he will not be returning to the Zemco sprinter next season. Smith will compete in 50 WoO sprint shows next season with a newly formed team that will be formally announced shortly. Smith will drive the Zemco car in two weeks at the All Star show in Georgia as well as the World Finals in Charlotte.
Shane Stewart won last weekend’s ASCS LoneStar Sprint Nationals at Lone Star Speedway over Jason Johnson and Daryn Pittman. Pittman was a preliminary winner on Friday night. Stewart continues to lead the driver points with ASCS while Jason Johnson Racing is the car owner point leader.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
For the third time in less than six weeks, another local 410 Sprint car driver suffered a season ending injury over the weekend.
Fayetteville’s Lance Dewease became the latest driver to go on the injured reserved list after suffering a compression fracture to his C6 vertebra Saturday at Lincoln Speedway.
Dewease underwent neck surgery on Sunday at York Hospital and faces a three to six month recovery period. He was released from the hospital on Tuesday. He had just clinched the Williams Grove Speedway track championship Friday night.
The rear axle broke in the Catoctin Motorsports sprinter causing Dewease’s car to flip.
Dewease joins Aaron Ott and Chad Criswell on the disabled list.
Ott suffered fractures to his C6 and C7 back in early September at Williams Grove Speedway and Criswell suffered the same fractures two weeks ago in a crash at Lincoln.
Dewease was the only driver to require surgery. Dewease’s C6 was very badly fractured but doctors were able to put everything back together.
All three drivers are expected to make full recoveries.
Cards can reach Dewease at Infinity Designs, 1500 E. Main Street, Waynesboro, PA 17268.
LEPPO A HOT COMMODITY
Brian Leppo is a hot commodity this weekend.
With regular driver Dewease out of action, car owners Donny and Lisa Owens still need to compete Friday night in order to have a chance at winning the Williams Grove car owner point standings.
While Dewease won the driver portion of the title, the $10,000 owner portion is still up for grabs as only 95 points separate Owens from Chad and Jenn Clemens.
Leppo will pilot the No. 30C sprinter for the team Friday.
Leppo then will drive the Mike Heffner owned Heffner Racing Enterprises No. 27 sprinter Saturday night at Lincoln Speedway.
Heffner’s regular driver Daryn Pittman will be racing elsewhere this weekend and Heffner asked Leppo to fill in.
Leppo’s Swope Racing Team are out of motors after blowing two at the Williams Grove National Open over the past two weeks. Carlisle car owner Jesse Keen gave Leppo a motor to use last week at Lincoln and will do so again next weekend at the Twin 20s at Lincoln and at the Fallfest at Williams Grove.
PIT STOPS
The 358 Sprints will have double features Friday night at Williams Grove, one which was rained out on September 4th at the track. Pat Cannon leads Logan Schuchart for the Grove title.
Lincoln will also have the 358 sprints Saturday night on its card with 410 Sprints and the final points race for the thundercars.
The House of Thunder Halloween party and Grandview Thunder 5-25’s in on tap Saturday night at Grandview Speedway. It will be the final points race for the URC Sprints as Curt Michael will wrap up his eighth career URC championship. Also on the Grandview card include 358 Modifieds, Sportsman Modifieds, ARDC Midget and Legends.
Following his fourth straight win on the World of Outlaws tour Saturday at Rolling Wheels Raceway Park, Jason Meyers holds a commanding lead in the WoO points heading into the final five races of the season. The Outlaws invade Ohio’s Fremont Speedway Saturday night.
Many Central PA race teams are preparing to make the annual trek south to the Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway on November 3, 4 and 5. The WoO Sprints, WoO late models and DIRT Modifieds share the track in the three day extravaganza where the WoO late model point battle will no doubt come down to the final lap between Rick Eckert and Josh Richards. Eckert won his third WoO late model race last week at Rolling Wheels and is 22 points ahead of Richards with five races left.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
Thanks to Mother Nature, the 49th annual Williams Grove National Open will expand into a second weekend.
Of course, the weather was an issue at last week’s Open event and it just seems like a broken record each and every weekend around here anymore. Rain and more rain.
Heavy showers on Saturday forced Grove and World of Outlaw officials to postpone the show and all parties also used good judgment in also skipping Sunday’s raindate which held another crappy forecast.
The forecast for Friday night’s rescheduled Open looks perfect and let’s hope it stays that way.
Let’s take a look at some notes from last week’s Open and some other random thoughts about the event.
First off, last weekend no All Star Circuit of Champions driver would have been able to be at the Grove due to an “Ohio Region” points race at Eldora Speedway Saturday night. Hopefully some of the All Star regulars head to Central PA this weekend to compete at the Open. Note to All Star President Guy Webb, keep the National Open date open next year and in years to come so your series can be represented at the biggest race on the east coast! Guys like Tim Shaffer should be in the field each and every year!
It’s always good to see a guy like Jason Meyers drive to a win. Meyers is one of the good guys in the sport and runs a first class operation. He’s certainly showing he’s the real deal and barring anything crazy happening, he will be cashing in on his second straight WoO Sprint championship.
Once again last week, drivers that pulled a low pill for his or her time trial spot seemed to benefit although several drivers coming out late in the order had some good times. Seven of the top 10 drivers in time came out in the first ten spots. Joey Saldana was the highest driver to time well that came out late in the order.
How about the performance by 18-year old Logan Schuchart last Friday night.
He had by far the biggest crowd response (cheer wise) and was very impressive in his heat race, dash and during the first 19 laps of the A-Main. Schuchart gave Meyers all of the pressure he could handle and I feel had he been able to get around the Outlaw champion, Schuchart would have driven away from him. But inexperience got the best of him when he tagged the wall to end the good run.
How often to you see a guy like Sammy Swindell spin twice in one night on his own? It happened last Friday night. He will be tough Friday night in the Open.
Fred Rahmer’s third place finish helped car owners Chad and Jenn Clemens close in on Donny and Lisa Owens’ car owner point lead for the owner portion of the Lawrence Chevrolet Grove points title. While Dewease holds a big lead on the driver side, his owners hold a slim 65 point lead with two races remaining. The owner portion pays $10,000.
Long time Williams Grove Speedway flagman Butch Book was honored trackside with a retirement celebration. Book was scheduled to retire after the Open last week so we aren’t sure if that retirement has been extended at least another week.
And for those of you who like fireworks, there will be another fireworks display this Friday night during the evening’s festivities.
Last week, 53 cars signed in for competition. Could we hit the big 6-0 this week?
PIT STOPS
The Saturday Night Series returns to Williams Grove Saturday night as the battle for the second spot in final points is shaping up to be a dandy. While Frankie Herr remains in control for another title, Scott Dellinger, Carmen Perigo, Jr. and Russ Mitten are only separated by 30 points for the second spot in points. This will be the final Saturday Night Series race of 2011 and the series will return again in 2012.
Lincoln Speedway returns to action Saturday night with the Hank Gentzler Memorial for 410 Sprints on Manufacturers Appreciation Night. The 358 Sprints will also be on the card , which has a 6pm start time.
Dale Blaney won last Saturday’s All Star event at Eldora Speedway which was his 84th career All Star win. Blaney took advantage of point leader Tim Shaffer’s bad luck to score the win, his ninth of the season. Shaffer, who was leading late in the event before being involved with a lapped car that got upside down. Shaffer did return to finish seventh and clinch the $20,000 Ohio region All Star point title.
With just three 358 sprint car races left in Central PA this season, Schuchart has officially clinched the 2011 Central PA 358 Sprint Series presented by HTMA point championship and the $6,000 payday that comes along with it.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
Nobody Asked Me But...
September 21, 2011
Nobody asked me but.. We are on the downside of the 2011 racing season with just over a month of local racing remaining on the schedule. It seems like this year flew by quicker than years past. Speaking of coming to an end, Mark Smith and Don Kreitz, Jr. are two 410 Sprint drivers yet to visit victory lane this season and are running short on chances to do so. Kreitz is always good for a win at the Grove so hopefully it will happen before the end of the year for the long-time veteran. Silly season part one took place a few weeks. Now the question is, when will silly season part two take place? My guess would be in mid to late October. And will silly season just take place locally or also on the national front? Time will tell. Rick Eckert continues to lead the World of Outlaws late model points but week after week, the York driver sees that lead dwindle. This past weekend, two time WoO champion Josh Richards closed to within 16 points of Eckert for the points lead with just six races to go. Richards’ win was his eighth this season while Eckert has just two wins. Maybe the former local standout will pull off a win or two in the next few weeks to seal the deal for a first ever $100,000 payday at the head table in November. Kevin Nouse left the Pinter Motorsports sprinter for a chance to drive for Gary and Patty Beam. The season for the Beam No. 88 is over after Nouse made just three starts in the car. Will the Beam machine make a return in 2012? Despite nine wins in 358 sprint action this season, Pat Cannon’s year has not been all that great and he has two chances Friday night to help seal the deal in the 358 sprint car points at Williams Grove Speedway. It would be a nice finish to the year for Cannon and the Carlisle-based Highlands team. Speaking of Cannon, will the third time be the charm at the Selinsgrove Speedway 410 National Open next season? Last weekend, Cannon came up one spot short of cashing in on the $14,000 bonus in the Jim Nace Memorial. It was the same scenario the year before. It would be a pretty sweet deal for the team to sweep it next year, especially if they are only part time in the 410’s again. We hope that Joey Saldana is making the right decision to return to the World of Outlaws sprint car tour this week. It was just two months ago when Saldana sustained major injuries in a crash at Eldora and he will must go back and tackle the Ohio track Friday night. Let’s hope Saldana can remain healthy in 2012 because he has been a major threat to win the WoO title before two straight championship-killing injuries. It was good to see Carmen Perigo, Jr. finally score the big win in the Sportsman 100. Like many Sportsman drivers, he has been trying for so many seasons to win the big race and has been in striking distance a few times only to have bad luck set in. But did anyone really expect a final lap pass on Frankie Herr to win it? Barring any major issues, Jason Meyers is in cruise control for a second straight WoO Sprint championship and unlike last season, Meyers holds a fairly commanding lead heading into the final six weeks of action.
PIT STOPS A correction to Monday’s weekend roundup stating that Carmen Perigo’s Sportsman 100 win was also a first for his car owner Walt Bigler. Actually the win was the fourth time Bigler has won the biggest race of the season with his No. 93 car. Danny Hager had two wins and Frankie Herr had a win and now Perigo makes it four for the long time car owner. Speaking of Bigler, his grandson Daulton Bigler is a pretty good racer in the making as he just scored his 60th career win in the go kart division at Shippensburg Speedway on Friday night. Bigler, who turns 13 this Saturday also won the .500 cage division track championship at Ship. It was his third career championship as well. Bigler’s car owner, crew chief and proud grandfather is former late model racer Kenny Riland. There is a chance that the young driver will be making a move to another division in 2012 but nothing has been finalized. Craig Dollansky and Steve Kinser added wins to their 2011 totals last weekend with the Outllaws. Dollansky won at Clay County Speedway while Kinser took the win at Deer Creek Speedway. The two drivers are the leading WoO winners this season. Tim Shaffer captured win number ten on the All Star tour last weekend but it was Bryan Sebetto taking the big pay in Saturday’s $10,000 to win show at Fremont Speedway. Sebetto edged Shaffer by .045 seconds for the win. Shaffer is headed to another All Star National championship but it doesn’t appear that he will win the Eastern region of the All Star series this season.
Call it the final weekend summer. Call it the
kickoff to another great season of college football. Call it Labor
Day weekend or just call it what you want.
But as summer says goodbye, the upcoming weekend is loaded with
races galore across the midstate area and we have several great
point battles shaping up in the process.
Williams Grove Speedway sees action twice this weekend with the 410
Sprints taking center stage in Friday night’s Jack Gunn Memorial
Triple 20’s and then again Sunday night in the Billy Kimmel
Memorial, which also features 358 sprints and Super Sportsman.
The Triple 20’s and the Kimmel Memorial will be four complete point
shows that will go a long way in determining who wins the Lawrence
Chevrolet championship at the Grove this season.
Lance Dewease is currently in the drivers seat for the $20,000 title
as he and car owner Donny Owens are both atop of the points.
Brian Montieth and Doug Esh are locked in a good battle for second
in points but both are over 400 points behind the leader.
On the car owner side, Fred Rahmer’s car owners Chad and Jen Clemens
are currently second, just over 200 markers behind.
No driver has ever swept the Triple 20’s at the Grove. Last season,
Daryn Pittman, Tyler Walker and Don Kreitz, Jr. each won a feature.
Lincoln Speedway will feature a regular show for the 410 Sprints
this weekend which will serve as the final points race of the
season.
Brian Montieth is currently 40 points ahead of Danny Dietrich in his
quest for a fourth-straight championship while Dietrich is looking
for his first title.
Port Royal Speedway will host the 157th annual Juniata County Fair
beginning Saturday as the track presents a regular Saturday night
sprint car program along with the eighth annual Butch Renninger
Memorial for stock cars.
Monday is a big day for the track and the fair as the 60th annual
Labor Day Classic races take center stage with a $3,500 to win
sprint car feature. Pittman is the defending winner of the Labor Day
Classic.
Port Royal also has quite a battle to decide its 2011 sprint car
champion as Ryan Taylor’s great season sees him on top of the points
standings looking for a first ever title. Following Taylor and in
striking distance are Mike Erdley and Mike Wagner. Port Royal’s
final points race will be next weekend’s Tuscarora 50.
Bedford Speedway is back in action after a month off and will
present its season finale for late models on Friday night in a
$2,000 to win event joined by the limited late models.
Saturday, Hagerstown Speedway heats up with the McBee/Hayes Memorial
for late models paying $2,500 to win.
The 358 Sprint cars have a big night Saturday when the Mach-1
Chassis National Open for 358-360 Sprint cars is on the agenda..
That race pays $8,000 to the winner.
And the 358 late models also have a big weekend event as Susquehanna
Speedway Park presents its 11th annual York County Nationals on
Saturday night. The limited late models go after a $1,000 top prize.
JERRY REIGLE LOSES BATTLE
Fellow racing columnist Jerry Reigle lost his courageous battle with
cancer on Tuesday.
Reigle, 43, was diagnosed with stomach cancer last fall and has put
up the biggest fight for his life ever since, doing everything in
his power to come out on top.
Unfortunately there was a bigger plan for Jerry but he left behind a
ton of great memories for myself and all of his readers in the
racing community.
Reigle was a long time columnist for the Patriot News and most
recently was the assistant editor for Area Auto Racing News and was
famous for his Sprint Car News column every week in the paper.
I was the best man in Jerry’s first wedding and am proud to say
Jerry was a great friend for so many years. While we grew apart over
the past 10 or so years, until the past few years, I will miss
Jerry’s quirkiness, simple emails and his passion for racing but
most of all, I am thankful that I can say he was a part of my life
for so many good years. Those are memories that I will treasure
forever.
Rest in Peace my friend. You touched a lot of people.
Services will be Saturday at 10am at the Family Life Center in
Newport, PA. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations be
made to the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area, 7790 Grayson Rd,
Harrisburg, PA 17111 or the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing, PO Box
688, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055.
PIT STOPS
Former Red Lion resident Cody Darrah captured his second career
World of Outlaws feature win Saturday at Castrol Raceway in
Edmonton, Alberta Canada. It was Darrah’s first win with the Kasey
Kahne Racing team in his first full season on the trail. Darrah
ranks eighth in WoO points following the $12,000 payday over Brad
Sweet and Steve Kinser.
Jason Meyers won Friday’s WoO sprint main at Castrol Raceway over
Donny Schatz and Lucas Wolfe. Meyers leads Schatz by 82 points on
the WoO trail.
Lincoln Speedway has rescheduled the John Gleim 59th Anniversary
Twin 20’s for 410 Sprints to Friday night, October 21st. The race
will be a time trial event and will serve as the season finale in
the Pigeon Hills.
Selinsgrove Speedway has also rescheduled its Late Model Open for a
third time. It will now be held on Saturday, October 8th and will
pay $5,000 to win.
Fans attending Sunday’s Billy Kimmel Memorial at Williams Grove are
asked to wear white as the organizers for the event are looking to
“WhiteOut” the Grove. This has been a tradition for the past few
years.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
Silly season, August style, has hit the Central Pennsylvania sprint car scene.
Last week, it was Keen Motorsports making the headlines with the departure of their driver Tyler Walker and the hiring of Todd Shaffer to finish out the year in the No. 17 sprinter.
That left the Gary and Patty Beam owned No. 88 sprint car seat vacant and no one really knew what would happen.
During the offseason, the Beam Team were retiring from sprint car racing as was their driver Shaffer. But a week before the Port Royal Speedway season opener, the team purchased some equipment and returned to the track, mostly at Port Royal this season.
So with Shaffer leaving the team for the Keen team last week, the Beam’s were planning on selling out once again but Kevin Nouse was one of several drivers to call about the ride.
Nouse will take over the seat of the No. 88 sprinter beginning this Saturday night at the Port and will run the rest of the Port Royal shows along with a few other events in the area to finish out the year.
But Nouse was already piloting the John and Karen Pinter No. 92 sprinter at Lincoln Speedway on Saturday nights and was enjoying some recent success with the team, including three straight top five finishes. But Nouse informed the Pinter team that he was leaving for the Beam opportunity.
“This is an amazing opportunity that I just couldn’t turn down,” Nouse said in a press release released this week. “Being offered a ride by Hall of Fame car owners and a Hall of Fame mechanic (Jim Russell) is very humbling to me.”
Despite at the change, the Beam sprinter will continue to be housed out of Shaffer’s home in Millerstown.
URC champion JJ Grasso made his first start in a backup Pinter car at Lincoln Speedway last Saturday night as Grasso was looking to get track time before the upcoming Jersey Rush 410 sprint car event at New Egypt Speedway next Tuesday night.
Grasso, who parted with URC car owners Palladino Motorsports last week said that he will be finishing out the year with URC.
“My plan is to finish out the year with URC with what we can afford and challenge for the championship with John Pinter’s 360 engine,” Grasso said on Monday. “We can still win the URC title, but it’s going to take some luck but you have to be in it to win it.”
Grasso led the URC points all season up until last Friday night when his deal with the Palladino went sour. The car was parked that night and Grasso fell 70 points behind Curt Michael with eight races left on the schedule.
There was no word on who, if anyone will climb behind the wheel of the Pinter Motorsports 410 sprint car.
Is this just the beginning of changes of scenery here in Central PA? We will just have to sit back and see.
PIT STOPS
It appears that the Super Sportsman division has lost a good team following Saturday night’s racing at Williams Grove Speedway. Jason Fry was sent to the rear of the field “rough riding” Lanny Hake during the feature event. Fry was not happy with the call and parked his car on the front stretch and walked to the pits. On a statement on his website, Fry does not feel the right call was made in the incident. Fry and his team were responsible for the Ronald McDonald House night at the track on Saturday and the Fry team has been around for many seasons. It would be a shame to lose this team. Visit www.jasonfryracing.com to view the statement yourself.
One of the most prolific racers in the area -Ray Tilley- passed away last Friday afternoon after suffering a stroke. Cards can reach his family at 580 Honeysuckle Court, Pine Grove, PA 17963.
The URC series is in action two times this weekend in the area with Friday night action at Williams Grove and Saturday at Port Royal. Both races will be challenge races with the 358 sprints, therefore drawing for heat race lineups will be the format. Look for several drivers to do double duty at both shows including Daryn Pittman, Lance Dewease and Mark Smith.
Steve Kinser dominated World of Outlaw sprint action last weekend with wins Friday at River Cities Speedway and again Saturday at Huset’s Speedway. Friday night, Kinser and teammate Donny Schatz exchanged the lead nine times in what had to be one very entertaining race! Schatz was second over Jason Meyers while Meyers and Brad Sweet followed Kinser Saturday night.
Justin Henderson stayed out west following Knoxville in the Sorokach Racing sprinter and finished 13th at River Cities and ninth at Huset’s with the Outlaws. He also finished fourth at Huset’s regular show Sunday and had a third place finish with the All Stars last Thursday. Henderson will be back in PA this weekend.
Josh Richard won again with the WoO Late models last weekend and continues to move closer to Rick Eckert for the top of the points with the late model tour. Richards won at Winston Speedway and is just 28 points back of Eckert with less than 10 races remaining. Eckert, of York has never won a WoO title.
Lincoln Speedway will present Twin 20s for 410 Sprints on its 59th Anniversary show Saturday night. Each 20 lap feature pays $2,700 to win and will go a long way in determining the 2011 point champion with one point remaining after this week. Brian Montieth leads Danny Dietrich by 40 points.
Friday night will be Kids Night at Williams Grove Speedway. Kids Night festivities begin at 5:30pm with an autograph session while other attractions will be Big Wheel and bike races, a Moon bounce, Giant spider climb and Build A Bear.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
It was quite a week for two Central Pennsylvania 410 sprint car owners at
the 51st Goodyear Knoxville Nationals.
Mike Heffner, car owner for Daryn Pittman and Donny Owens, car owner for
Lance Dewease both took in the excitement of the Nationals and when the
final checkered flag fell on the Saturday night’s A-Main, both car owners
headed back to Pennsylvania with their first ever top 10 finish in the
premiere sprint car event in the world.
Pittman gave Heffner Racing Enterprises a well deserved fifth place finish
and contended for the lead during the mid stages of the event. It was the
first time Heffner entered his No. 27 car in the Nationals and Pittman
delivered with a top five right out of the box. Pittman’s fifth place finish
was a career best in the Knoxville Nationals.
“The whole experience was terrific,” Mike Heffner said Monday after
returning home from the event that saw Pittman earn a $21,000 payday for his
fifth place finish. “It was my first ever visit to the Nationals and the
first time we took the 27 car. The whole team-Jimmy, Sean and Glenno made me
so proud. It is an understatement to say that I was very impressed with DP’s
driving. I hope that we made PA proud by bringing home a top five finish and
contending for the lead. We were trying to represent our two home tracks,
Port Royal and Williams Grove and do well for them.”
Owens, owner of the Catoctin Motorsports No. 30C also got a top 10 finish in
the first ever Nationals A-Main his car qualified for. Dewease started 24th
and drove to a ninth place finish, worth $17,000. It was Dewease’s best ever
finish in the National event.
“Knoxville was really special for me this year,” said Owens on Tuesday. “It
was my first A Main and it was Lance’s best ever finish at Knoxville. Lance
as accomplished so much in his career and for him to have his best finish
for our team is something special. It would have been very easy to get down
after timing in 36th on Thursday but our team has some really special
chemistry and we never gave up. We had to race our way in and that’s what we
ended up doing. Other than Shane Stewart, I think we passed more cars than
anyone in our nights so hopefully that is something we can build on.”
While Donny Schatz once again returned to the top of sprint car racing with
his fifth Nationals win in the last six seasons, Shane Stewart was the story
of the week.
The current ASCS 360 National tour points leader was more than impressive
all week passing over 50 cars during four events. Stewart finished second in
both Friday night events-The Race of Champions and the World Challenge, both
coming from deep in the field.
In Saturday’s Nationals, Stewart lined up 17th and raced home second and was
closing in a hurry on Schatz. He settled for the $75,000 runner-up finish,
his best ever Knoxville 410 National effort. He is a multi-time Knoxville
360 National winner, including two weeks ago. Stewart is the most underrated
driver in the nation.
Lucas Wolfe won Friday’s World Challenge and the $10,000 payoff that went
along with it. It was the most money Wolfe ever won in a single event. Wolfe
also finished in the Friday night Non-Qualifiers feature.
Stevie Smith and Fred Rahmer also qualified for the Nationals driving
Pennsylvania based cars. Locals not making the grade were Greg Hodnett,
Justin Henderson, Brian Montieth, Tyler Walker and Kenny Jacobs in the J & S
Fabrication sprinter.
The 2011 Nationals were the last for outgoing Knoxville race director Ralph
Capitani, who has held the helm at the Iowa speedway for 44 years. He will
be replaced by John McCoy.
CHANGES AT KEEN
A shakeup took place in the Keen Motorsports stables while the team was
competing at the Knoxville Nationals last week.
Tyler Walker left the Carlisle based team and headed back to California for
medical reasons and was quickly replaced by Millerstown’s Todd Shaffer.
Walker announced via his Facebook page on Monday night that he is suffering
from an inner ear infection and vertigo and with medication, he will be good
to go in a week to 10 days. But he is without a 410 sprint car ride due to
this issue despite recently winning $50,000 at the Kings Royal at Eldora
Speedway.
Shaffer will take over the No. 17 sprint car Friday night at Williams Grove
Speedway.
Shaffer, who has retired from racing twice in the last five years, returned
to action right before the season opener at Port Royal this year with the
help of long time car owners Gary and Patty Beam. But Sunday, Shaffer left
the Beam’s for a new full-time ride.
While Shaffer and Keen team will compete in all of the season ending shows,
according to Patty Beam, the No. 88 team will be sold and they will retire
from the sport for good.
PIT STOPS
Twin 20’s for 410 Sprints is on tap Friday at Williams Grove. While a fan
favorite, Twin 20’s and Triple 20’s turn into very expensive nights for car
owners. No driver has won both Twin 20’s since 1995 when Fred Rahmer pulled
off the feat.
Hagerstown Speedway will feature the $2,500 to win Bull Durham Shorty Bowers
Memorial for late models Saturday night.
Cale Reigle picked up Saturday’s 600 Micro sprint win at Shippensburg
Speedway over Jim Brookens, Tim Dietz, Dave Thrush and Mike Holley.
Mark Dobmeier won Sunday night’s All Star Sprint main at Huset’s Speedway
over Tim Shaffer, Dale Blaney, Lynton Jeffrey and Justin Henderson. Stevie
Smith finished eighth and Lucas Wolfe ninth.
The URC Sprint series announced this week that they will not be holding
their annual awards banquet at the end of the season. Instead, they will
present the $60,000 season payout in the Rislone series to its drivers at
the season ending event at Grandview Speedway in October. URC has also
changed its handicapping format and have also dropped time trials from the
Rislone Nationals at Williams Grove.
Speaking of URC, car owners Kathy and Pat Palladino and driver JJ Grasso
have split. The team led the URC point series all season long and were
leading Friday night going into Big Diamond when things turned sour within
the team. The result was the Palladino No. 99 sprinter being loaded up and
Grasso out of a ride. Josh Weller will replace Grasso for the balance of the
season in the potent sprinter.
The Sportsman 100 for Super Sportsman is coming up on September 17 and Mike
Gill is looking for lap sponsors. He can be reached via email at
mgmotorsports@comcast.net. Laps are $10 each.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
When Williams Grove Speedway presents a driver with its 2011 Sportsmanship
Award at its annual banquet in November, the award will carry a special name
for the first time ever.
Beginning this season, the award will now carry the name “The Jerry Reigle
Sportsmanship Award” in honor of long-time Pennsylvania motorsports writer
Jerry Reigle, of Camp Hill.
Reigle has been a staple in the racing community for so many years, covering
local racing for the Patriot and most recently covering all aspects of
racing for Area Auto Racing News out of New Jersey. He has also been active
writing for other publications as well over the years.
The award-winning writer now finds himself fighting the battle of his life
as he battles cancer and despite having a doctor tell him over the winter to
start working on his bucket list, Reigle has remained strong and has done
everything in his power to beat the disease. He has recently suffered some
setbacks but vows to keep up the fight.
“It’s quite humbling to have such an award named like the Sportsmanship
Award named in your honor,” said Reigle about the award given in his name by
track owner Kathy Hughes. “We tend to forget, especially after doing this
for 21 yeas, that we’re one big family. We support each other, we debate, we
disagree, but in the end, we’re one big family.”
I’ve been doing this just about as long as Jerry has and while he and I have
had our ups and downs over the years, I am grateful for the many years of
valued friendship he has provided me and honored to say that we share the
same goal in reporting on local racing. That is to bring the best and most
accurate news to the fans of local racing each and every year and Jerry
certainly has done that for so many years.
Jerry, congratulations on this honor and I know the first driver to win the
award will be very honored to do so. And secondly, keep fighting my friend.
Everyone is pulling for you and know that you will win this battle.
MUCH NEEDED RAIN
While the area is dire need of rain, many areas received plenty of moisture
on Saturday but unfortunately, a complete washout of racing programs across
the area was a victim of the elements.
It was the first complete Saturday washout since April 16th.
The biggest weekend event lost due to the rain was the Living Legends Dream
Race 5 at Port Royal Speedway but PRS Promotions have came up with Plan B
which will take place on Friday September 9.
While it might not be exactly what last Saturday’s program was to be, it
will come close and will still honor Keith Kauffman and Walt Dyer for their
accomplishments at the track and will also give local race teams a good
payoff.
The Kauffman and Dyer Twin 20’s will be presented on the Night before the
Tuscarora 50 with the winning payoffs honoring the two icons. The first
feature pays $3,300 to win in honor of Kauffman’s legendary K33 sprinter
while the Dyer 20 will pay $4,610 to win in honor of the Brickmobile No.
461. Should the same driver win both features, he takes home a bonus of
$2,000 from lelands.com making it a $10,000 payday.
Selinsgrove Speedway also lost a big show in his All Star Championship
Racing sanctioned Late Model Open and track officials are also looking at a
reschedule date for the biggest late model show of the season at the Snyder
County track.
KNOXVILLE TIME
The 51st annual Goodyear Knoxville Nationals are this week as qualifying
action begins tonight and tomorrow as teams look to put themselves into
Saturday’s $150,000 to win Knoxville National A-Main.
Several teams and drivers from the area are in Iowa hoping to make the big
dance.
Local drivers qualifying tonight are Wolfe, Tyler Walker and Fred Rahmer
while Stevie Smith, Greg Hodnett, Brian Montieth, Kenny Jacobs, Daryn
Pittman, Lance Dewease, Justin Henderson and Cody Darrah are slated to
qualify Thursday night/
The race will be tape delayed on SPEED on September 4th.
PIT STOPS
Sammy Swindell made it three straight wins in the All Star sanctioned Front
Row Challenge Monday at Southern Iowa Speedway. Swindell didn’t take the
Front Row Challenge but did lead all 25 laps for the $10,000 win over Brad
Sweet, Shane Stewart, Sam Hafertepe and Donny Schatz. Fred Rahmer finished
10th while Daryn Pittman was paid for 17th after dropping out on the final
lap while running fifth. Lance Dewease was 23rd while Tyler Walker did not
qualify.
Keith Kauffman’s nephew Josh Dressler was planning to surprise his uncle
last Saturday at the Port with a special paint scheme on his sprinter.
Dressler had his machine lettered like Kauffman’s No. K33 sprinter, a car
that Kauffman debuted back in the 1970’s. Dressler will run the car this
weekend at the Port.
Chad Layton piloted the Troy Fraker 410 sprint car last Friday at Williams
Grove as his normal ride in the Dave Middleswarth sprinter sits idle on
Friday nights. Early word for this week will see Layton back in the Fraker
machine or don’t be surprised to see him in a family owned No. U1. Layton
will be back in the Middleswarth car at the Port.
Donny Schatz and Craig Dollansky were World of Outlaw feature winners last
weekend. Schatz won Friday at Bloomington Speedway while Dollansky won the
Ironman 55 at I-55 Raceway. Mechanicsburg’s Lucas Wolfe continued his recent
success with two more top five finishes. Wolfe was second on Friday and
third on Saturday in the Allebach Racing sprinter.
Josh Richards won the biggest race of his career last Saturday when he
pocketed $50,000 for his win in the USA Nationals at Cedar Lake Speedway.
Richards came back strong on Monday night to score another win at
Independence Motor Speedway. With 11 races remaining on the WoO LM tour,
Richards continues to trail York’s Rick Eckert in the overall point
standings as Eckert looks for a career first WoO title.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
It’s one of the biggest nights of the year at Port Royal Speedway and it
will honor two of the most iconic men to ever stand foot on the historic
Juniata County Fairgrounds.
It’s the Living Legends Dream Race 5 and the track will pay tribute to
driver Keith Kauffman and retired car owner Walt Dyer.
On the track action will offer up a lot of excitement with a qualifying
format similar to that of a World of Outlaws sanctioned event to the chance
of one driver possibly taking home $24,000.
That chance, however slight it may be will be the Lelands.com Dream Race
Challenge in memory of Marion Ritzman, offering a front row feature starter
the option to go to the 24th and final starting spot. Should that driver win
the 40-lap Dream Race, he will take home a $12,000 bonus on top of the
already big $12,000 winners share of the event.
Two of the previous four winners of the Dream Race will be in competition
Saturday night. Greg Hodnett (2008) and defending track champion and last
week’s Port Royal feature winner Chad Layton won the event last season.
Other winners included Sean Michael and Cody Darrah.
Off the track it will be all about Keith Kauffman and Walt Dyer, honoring
their accomplishments at the track for so many years.
Kauffman, still an active driver today will be honored by a host of former
car owners, sponsors and even a mentor along with current car owners Gary
and Linda Heckman.
Al Hamilton, Leon Wintermyer, Bob Stewart and Maynard Boop are some of the
car owners planning to attend along with former sponsor John Groninger and
mentor Lynn Paxton.
The Hamilton Motorsports sprinter of Aaron Ott, the HTF #8H and the restored
Blue Deuce which Kauffman began his career will be on display.
For Dyer, a host of former drivers will take part in the ceremony including
Lance Dewease, John Ebersole, Don Hill, Steve Siegel, Van May, Scott Tobias,
Jimmy Sheaffer, Smokey Snellbaker and Mike Wagner.
Dewease will also honor Dyer by carrying the familiar colors of the Dyer
Masonry No. 461 Brickmobile during the races Saturday night. Two restored
Dyer machines will also be on display.
Both Kauffman and Dyer will be signing autographs beginning at 5pm.
How cool would it be for Kauffman to add his name to the list of Dream Race
winners this weekend or how cool would it be for Dewease to carry the Dyer
colors to his first win in the event. Or what member of the Pennsylvania
Posse adds his name to the list of winners or we will see a repeat winner?
Sponsors of the Dream Race include Brown’s Funeral Home, First National Bank
of Mifflintown, Lingle’s Distributing, Lelands.com and Terry and Shane
Ritzman.
RISLONE NATIONALS UP NEXT
Williams Grove Speedway will host the Rislone URC Sprint Nationals Friday
night and a banner field of 360 sprint cars should be in competition.
Tennessee veteran Terry Gray will make the trek to the Grove to compete for
the $5,000 winners share Friday night to challenge the URC stars along with
some of the biggest names on the Central PA scene as well.
Daryn Pittman is the defending winner of this event but will not be on hand
this week as his team will be competing in Knoxville, Iowa.
Pat Cannon, Lance Dewease, Mark Smith, JJ Grasso, Curt Michael, Dave Ely,
Nicole Bower are just some of the drivers that will be on hand for the event
which begins at 7:30pm.
PIT STOPS
Selinsgrove Speedway will be hosting the 13th annual Late Model Open
sanctioned by All Star Championship Racing Saturday night with a cool $5,000
going to the winner. It’s the first time in history that this race will be
sanctioned and will be interesting to see if all time track leading winner
Jeff Rine can set back all of the invaders for a big payday.
Paul McMahan and Jason Meyers were winners on the WoO Sprint tour last
weekend as the series visited Canada. McMahan’s third win of the year came
at Brockville Ontario over Meyers, Craig Dollansky, Lucas Wolfe and Steve
Kinser while Meyers’ third win came at Autodrome Drummond over Kinser,
Wolfe, Brad Sweet and McMahan. Meyers has opened up a 42-point lead over
Donny Schatz in the point chase.
Joey Saldana hopes to be on hand this weekend to watch his Kasey Kahne
Racing teammates in action as he recovers from injuries suffered at the
Kings Royal. Saldana will be out of action at least another month as his
lung heals. He also suffered a broken arm and ribs.
Kenny Jacobs will have the J &S Fabrication sprinter at the All Star show in
Knoxville, Iowa this weekend preparing for next week’s Nationals. Depending
on equipment following the next two weeks, don’t be surprised to see the car
show up at the Williams Grove National Open.
The 51st annual Knoxville Nationals are on tap next week with qualifying
action Wednesday and Thursday nights with Champions Night on Friday leading
up to the big night next Saturday. Several local teams will be in
competition at the biggest race for 410 sprint cars in the world including
Pittman, Tyler Walker, Greg Hodnett, Lance Dewease, Brian Montieth, Justin
Henderson and Fred Rahmer. Local fans can watch all of the action via pay
per view at www.knoxvilleraceway.com.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
Nobody asked me but…
I know he’s an Outlaw but it was neat to see Jason Meyers win the Summer
Nationals at Williams Grove Speedway last Saturday night. Meyers is one of
the most down to earth drivers on tour, doing it his way and doing it very
well. His interview proved just how big it is for a driver of any caliber to
win at Williams Grove.
With saying that, had one more car beat Greg Hodnett in time trials on
Saturday, I feel confident Hodnett and the Trone Outdoor team would have
swept the weekend and kept the Posse streak alive. And it’s interesting to
see that Hodnett actually timing well hurt him last weekend. He hasn’t timed
well all season and has had to race his way through the field on many
occasions but Hodnett timed eighth quick and those drivers timing ninth
through 16th with the Outlaws get front row starting spots in heat races.
Hodnett started third but was unable get by front row starters Sammy
Swindell and Steve Kinser in his heat race.
It’s good to see veteran Cris Eash still winning races and giving his
Carlisle car owner Brian Buckner’s sprinter some good runs. Eash won at
Trail-Way again last week and had a top five run at Lincoln. He took over
the seat of the car when a back injury forced Bruckner to retire.
Logan Schuchart is having quite a season in the 358 sprint division with six
overall wins and opened up some distance in the Central PA 358 Sprint Series
points after last week’s win, third and sixth place finishes. But Schuchart
still has a long way to go to come close to what Pat Cannon has done in the
358 sprint ranks. Cannon currently has 63 career wins and numerous
championships. And although his Highlands team doesn’t run as many 358
sprint events as the Shark Motorsports team does, don’t count Cannon out of
the overall point title quite yet.
Schuchart is one of 27 different drivers to win a 358 sprint car feature
this season. Last season, 31 drivers won and we’re on pace to easily pass
that total this season.
Over in the 410 ranks, there have been 24 different winners on the local
scene and after the final checkered flag in 2010, 31 different drivers
scored a win locally. We may not beat that record but some of the names that
were on the list of winners last year and have yet to win this year include
Rick Lafferty, Don Kreitz, Adam Wilt, Jim Siegel and Chad Layton, who had
six wins in 2010.
The upcoming Living Legends race at Port Royal speedway is a cool idea. It’s
only fitting to honor the man who is Mr. Port Royal Speedway and has helped
make that track a success over the years. Keith Kauffman will be honored as
will retired car owner Walt Dyer who is also very deserving of the honor of
fielding one of the most competitive cars to ever circle Port Royal
Speedway.
Speaking of next week’s Dream Race 5 at Port, the track has announced the
Lelands.com Dream Race Challenge. One of the front row starters has an
option to go to the rear and should that driver win, he gets an extra
$12,000. While I don’t know what the format of the race is just yet, I will
be very surprised if any driver takes that challenge.
Joey Saldana just can’t buy any luck and it’s too bad that another injury
has taken him right out of the World of Outlaws championship battle. For the
second straight season, Saldana was right in the thick of the WoO battle but
another crash at Eldora has sidelined him and he will have to try again next
season. He certainly has had his share of hard knocks.
Knoxville Raceway announced that the Scramble Races held on the Friday night
of the Nationals have been scratched and a Race of Champions feature will
take the place of them. Such a great move for the Nationals as the Scrambles
were only good for an extra payoff for drivers. Now the lineup for the
National A-Main will come directly from the two qualifying nights and
nothing else plays into the equation. And the Posse will be represented in
the Race of Champions as both Brian Montieth and Greg Hodnett will be in the
field.
FIRST WIN FOR MCCLELLAND
Brad McClelland was named the National Sprint Car Poll 410 Sprint Car Rookie
of the Year last season and Sunday night, the Westminster, Maryland driver
captured his first career 410 Sprint car win at Lincoln Speedway.
McClelland took the lead on the ninth lap and was able to score the win over
Aaron Ott, points leader Brian Montieth, Kevin Nouse and Danny Dietrich.
Logan Schuchart became the 12th different winner in as many races as he
scored the 358 sprint car win. It was the young Hanover drivers sixth
overall win and padded his points lead in the 358 Sprint Series standings.
He won over Billy Pauch, Jr., Jeff Rohrbaugh, Cris Eash and Niki Young.
Sam Gallagher won both thundercar mains. He won the regularly scheduled
event along with a rained out feature from June 4.
PIT STOPS
Jim and Sandy Kline will be returning to sprint car action for a few races
with driver Kenny Jacobs. Jacobs, who drove for the Klines years ago will be
in the No. 22 Saturday night at Port Royal to shake down the car and
himself. Then Jacobs will take the J & S rig to Knoxville Raceway next
weekend for the All Star show and then will compete the following week in
the Nationals. According to Sandy Kline, these are the only planned shows
for the team and that they are not returning to the sprint car ranks. Stay
tuned.
Craig Dollansky became the leading winner on the World of Outlaws tour with
his sixth win of the year Sunday night at New York’s Lebanon Valley
Speedway. He defeated points leader Jason Meyers, Steve Kinser, Kerry Madsen
and Daryn Pittman.
Speaking of the Outlaws, Meyers took the biggest share of the Goodyear Tire
Midseason point fund for being the point leader at the midway part of the
season, Meyers earned $10,000 from the $55,000 fund. The top 10 in points
were awarded prize money ranging from $10,000 on top to $500 for 10th.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
Another edition of Outlaws versus Posse is coming at you this weekend.
The World of Outlaws are in Central Pennsylvania and will invade Williams
Grove Speedway to battle the Pennsylvania Posse in the Summer Nationals
Friday and Saturday night.
And it’s a well known fact that the Posse have owned the Outlaws at Williams
Grove over the past few seasons.
The Posse have won 10 out of the last 11 events at the Grove with Sammy
Swindell the only WoO member to break into victory lane over the past two
years after winning the National Open last year.
But other than Swindell, it’s been all Posse led by Thomasville’s Greg
Hodnett who owns half of the Posse wins and is the defending Summer
Nationals champion. However, Hodnett will be looking for a first this
weekend with the Outlaws as he looks to give new car owner John Trone his
first WoO win.
Hodnett has been the fastest car in Central PA over recent weeks but has
struggled with time trials which determines your fate during Outlaw shows.
However, in Tuesday night’s Silver Cup at Lernerville Speedway, Hodnett
timed 26th but ended up making the show and then drove from 23rd to seventh
in the first 30-lap feature and then came from dead last to finish fifth in
the second 30 lapper on Tuesday night.
Hodnett will be joined by the likes of Daryn Pittman, who beat the Outlaws
during the May visit, Tyler Walker, Brian Leppo, Brian Montieth, Lance
Dewease, Doug Esh, Stevie Smith who will be looking to keep the money local
this weekend.
Walker and the Keen Motorsports team will be looking at making it two
straight weekends with big paydays after his big Kings Royal win last
weekend at Eldora.
The Outlaw circuit has been a competitive one this season and the battle for
the top spot in points has seen five or six drivers all within 100 points of
the top spot heading into this weekend.
While defending champion Jason Meyers leads the Outlaws into town on top of
the point standings, Meyers only has one win this year as Steve Kinser and
Craig Dollansky top the win list with five each. Kinser is third in points
while Dollansky is fourth in points.
Donny Schatz has three wins and ranks a close runner-up in points while
Sammy Swindell and Joey Saldana both have four wins.
Saldana’s horrible luck continued this year as he was injured at Eldora
Speedway over the weekend, spending most of this week in an Indianapolis
hospital and has seen his chance at the point title go out the door for a
second straight year. He was also injured last season while in contention
for the title. He suffered a broken arm, broken ribs and a collapsed lung in
the crash and will be out of action for some time. Kasey Kahne Racing’s Brad
Sweet will fill in for Saldana until his return.
Tim Shaffer won Tuesday’s Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup at Lernerville
after his win in the second feature and a runner-up during the first
feature. Shaffer, who has two WoO wins this year, should be in competition
at the Grove this weekend.
The first annual Morgan Cup will also be presented on Friday night following
the 30-lap A Main feature.
The Morgan Cup will pit the top 12 drivers from last year’s National Open
vying for a Sterling silver cup imported from Italy. If the Posse win the
race, the Cup will be displayed proudly in the Williams Grove office for the
next year and if the Outlaws win, the Cup goes back to the Outlaw home base
in North Carolina.
Jason Meyers and Lance Dewease will be on the front row of the Morgan Cup
event which carries a $12,000 purse. Making out the field in order will be
Jason Sides, Stevie Smith, Paul McMahan, Brian Montieth, Donny Schatz, Daryn
Pittman, Kraig Kinser and Greg Hodnett.
Racing both Friday and Saturday begins at 7:30pm and there will be fireworks
both nights.
PIT STOPS
Don’t forget that Tony Stewart Racing drivers Steve Kinser and Donny Schatz
will be appearing at Bass Pro Shops at the Harrisburg Mall tonight from
5-7pm along with their race cars…
The 4th annual Lebanon Valley Salute to Veterans Race Car show will take
place on Sunday July 31st from 10am-2pm. Contact Bob Black at 717-507-8907if
you are interested in taking part of this show.
The All Star Circuit of Champions has ended is relationship with sponsor
O’Reilly Auto Parts due to and unpaid invoice. Wonder what this will do to
the three point series this season?
Brent Marks was named the new driver of the Dietz Motorsports No. 14
sprinter last week. He will replace Doug Dodson in the orange sprinter and
the car will be Marks’ Saturday night ride at Lincoln Speedway while he
remains in the family owned No. 19M Friday nights. Marks’ first start in the
car last weekend netted a fifth place finish.
There will be a 410 Sprint car show on August 30 at New Egypt Speedway
promoted by Bob Miller. The show will pay $4,000 to win but if a driver is
pre-entered, he will take home $5,000.
There will be a meeting soon with officials of the PA 305 Sprint series to
discuss the future of Michael and Logan Wagner. Apparently officials felt
the Wagner boys were involved in some fighting at the Port last weekend and
it’s possible they will be out of the series for the remainder of the year.
Hopefully we have news on that meeting next week. The Wagner boys have
accounted for at least eight wins this season on the 305 tour.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
There’s not a whole lot of news going on right now so we will look at some
random thoughts and happenings around the local racing circuit.
The upcoming Living Legends Dream Race for 410 Sprints at Port Royal
Speedway is taking shape and will honor two of the most prolific men in the
history of Central PA Sprint car racing.
Keiith Kauffman and Walt Dyer will be the honorees during the night in
deserving fashion as Kauffman is the track all time leading sprint car
winner and is still action racing this season for car owners Gary and Linda
Heckman. Kauffman has amassed 13 career track titles at the track and
remains the fan favorite each and every night at the track.
Dyer fielded the famous Dyer Masonry Brickmobile for decades on the local
racing scene and has visited victory lane so many times over the years. One
of Dyer’s greatest drivers ever-Lance Dewease-will drive a replica No. 461
Brickmobile that night.
The Dream Race will pay a cool $12,000 to win the 40-lap event with $500
going to the 24th place finisher.
Tony Stewart Racing drivers Steve Kinser and Donny Schatz along with their
World of Outlaws sprint cars will be making an appearance at the Bass Pro
Shop store, located at the Harrisburg Mall next Thursday, July 21st from
5-7pm. Kinser and Schatz will meet and greet with local race fans prior to
heading over to Williams Grove the next night for the Summer Nationals.
The good folks behind the Billy Kimmel Memorial Scholarship are now taking
applications for the 2011 version of the scholarship in the memory of the
late sprint car driver. Interested parties can visit www.billkimmel.com for
a copy of the application and rules of eligibility. Applications are due by
August 5.
During the off-season we talked with Guy Webb about his East Region All Star
point series and he said the series would only enhance the Central PA
circuit. While I think the east region series is a good thing with a $20,000
to win title, I can only hope that Webb thinks better of scheduling a race
in Canada the night after Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek holds its finale to
give the teams at least a day off in between such a grueling week here in
the midstate.
It’s nice to see some series sponsors stepping up to take care of race teams
during such an economic downturn.
The URC Sprint Company announced this week the Rislone URC Loyalty Reward
Program for its loyal car owners for the remainder of the season.
A total of $15,000 (to be paid out in two segments of $7,500) will be paid
to URC car owners if they attend at least six out of seven scheduled races
in the two segments. The $7,500 will be divided among all car owners, per
car that attend six of the seven designated events. So that means, if 10
cars make six of the events, each car will earn an extra $750 that will be
paid to the owner. The small number of cars, the higher the return for car
owners. This is great stuff and we applaud Rislone and URC for attempting to
take care of its teams for the remainder of the 2011 racing season.
Stevie Smith and the Zemco Racing team got a much needed victory last week
in New York at Mohawk International Raceway with the All Stars. It was only
the second win of the season for a team who dominated the area just two
seasons ago.
Greg Hodnett will make his first start in the 2003 season at Eldora Speedway
this weekend when the Trone Outdoor Motorsports team hit Ohio for the WoO
sanctioned Friday event and Saturday’s Kings Royal. He finished second in
the Kings Royal in 2003 behind race winner Steve Kinser. Joining Hodnett
from the local ranks will be Stevie Smith, Daryn Pittman and Tyler Walker.
The Kings Royal will be broadcast on Dirtvision.com and then will be shown
on the SPEED channel on July 30th at 1pm.
PIT STOPS
Jason Meyers and Joey Saldana scored wins on the WoO Sprint tour last
weekend as Meyers continues to lead a very close WoO points battle. Meyers
won Friday at Cedar Lake Speedway over Danny Lasoski and Steve Kinser while
Saldana took Saturday night’s win at Beaver Dam Raceway over Craig Dollansky
and Paul McMahan.
Duncannon’s Mike Holley picked up win number five in Shippensburg Speedway
600 Micro Sprint action last weekend. Holley beat a stellar field of cars in
the win over Kenny Edkin, David Thrush, Kameron Morral and Shane Hoff.
Williams Grove Speedway features an Outlaw Tuneup Friday night for the 410
Sprints paying $4,000 to win the 30-lap event. The format will be just like
what will be used weekend when the WoO comes to town. Williams Grove is back
Saturday night for the Saturday Night Series and it will also be Kids Night
at the Grove. Kids Night festivities begin at 4:30pm.
It will be Fan Appreciation Night Saturday night at Port Royal where fans
will be admitted to the grandstand for ten bucks for a 410 Sprint, late
model and 305 Sprint car program.
The 358 sprints and late models will be both be racing for $2,000 to win
Saturday night at Selinsgrove Speedway thanks to race night sponsor Jeff and
Kathy Kurtz, owners of Jeff’s Auto Body and Recycling and the Jeff Rine No.
2J late model. It will also be Fan Appreciation night at Selinsgrove where
the first 700 general and 400 pit admissions will receive a voucher for free
food plus a chance to win some great door prizes.
Lincoln Speedway will host the URC Sprints along with the 410 Sprints this
Saturday night.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
The 21st edition of Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek is now in the history books as this year’s series saw some great racing, fantastic weather, great crowds, good car counts, two first time Speedweek feature winners, a three time winner and a familiar champion.
Salfordville’s Fred Rahmer captured his 12th career PA Speedweek championship thanks to setting quick time on four occasions and five top five finishes, another top 10 finishes and two finishes outside the top 10. Rahmer had no wins during the Speedweek series, which was a first for the series in several seasons.
Rahmer ended the week with a total of 1,023 total points to defeat Greg Hodnett (1,008), Daryn Pittman (998), Tyler Walker (899) and Mark Smith (786). Completing the top 10 in final Speedweek points were Chad Layton (757), Danny Dietrich (742), Alan Krimes (718), Brian Montieth (716) and Lance Dewease (714).
Rahmer’s earnings for 2011 Speedweek were $12,600, which includes a $2,000 Speedweek first place payoff. His Barry Jackson prepared car set fast time at Lincoln, Bedford, Williams Grove and Port Royal. His time trial runs netted him 311 total points compared to Hodnett’s 171 time trial points. Rahmer earned 590 feature points compared to Hodnett’s 705.
Hodnett, who won the Speedweek title the past two seasons was unable to defend his title but was the top performer for the week with three feature wins, two runner -up finishes and a sixth place. He had a DNF at Lincoln and was 13th at Grandview.
Hodnett won at Hagerstown, Port Royal and Selinsgrove but his Thursday night win at Port Royal ranks up there as one of the all-time best runs for a Speedweek event after starting 14th in the field. He also finished second in the Mitch Smith Memorial. Hodnett earned $25,750, which includes a $1,500 Speedweek payoff.
Pittman had one win at Bedford, three runner-up finishes, a third, 10th, 12th and 14th during the week to end up third in points Pittman earned $18,600 for his efforts.
Walker was the Grandview winner and had a 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 10th, 13th and 22nd during the week. Walker’s earnings were $13.850.
Smith, also winless during the week finished out the top five in points with $8,900 in earnings with his best finish coming at Port Royal in the runner-up spot. He also had finishes of 6th, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 14th and 15th during the week.
Alan Krimes grabbed his first career Williams Grove feature win in the $10,000 to win Mitch Smith Memorial as he was third in points after the Grove but did not compete in the final two shows. Krimes had earnings of $15,850.
Cory Haas opened Speedweek with his first ever series win in the Kevin Gobrecht Memorial at Lincoln Speedway. Haas earned $7,000 for that win.
The final winner for the Speedweek series was Justin Henderson who won the Saturday night show at Port Royal. Henderson’s first series win pushed his earnings total to $9,950 for the week.
For the first time in recent memory, weather was never really an issue during this year’s Speedweek which helped produce great crowds at all eight events.
Seventy-two different drivers competed in at least one Speedweek show with 10 drivers making the tow to all eight speedways. Of the 72 drivers, 26 of them competed in just one Speedweek event.
The 21st annual series drew a 31 car average, with the high being 35 cars on Thursday at the Port and 24 at Grandview.
Several thoughts for Speedweek 2012...tracks need to start on time, and if a support division is needed, run their feature last.
PIT STOPS
The upcoming Dream race at Port Royal Speedway will honor Keith Kauffman and Walter Dyer, two men who have enjoyed great success at the track. Kauffman leads all drivers with wins at the track while Dyer fielded one of the most well-known sprint cars ever in Central PA. More details will be released in upcoming weeks about the event.
Craig Dollansky and Jason Sides were winners at Dodge City Raceway last weekend with the World of Outlaw Sprints while Chris Madden took the big $20,000 payday with a WoO late model series win at Tazwell Speedway.
Dale Blaney padded his All Star points lead with his fifth win Friday at KC Speedway.
Derek Sell will have his No. 20S sprint car on display in the infield this Friday night at Williams Grove Speedway supporting Alex’s Lemonade Stand Night at the races. The track will also be donating its portion of the 50/50 raffle to Alex’s Lemonade Stand on behalf of Derek Sell Racing. Make sure you stop by and support the team’s effort to support a great cause that is helping find a cure for childhood cancer.
The 358 late models will go topless Saturday night at Williams Grove Speedway in an event that will pay $1,200 to win along with an increased payoff through all 24 positions. Feature sponsors include Superior Homes and Bill Palmer Automotive while H & H Speed Equipment will give $250 to the Hard Charger in the feature, $200 will go to the fast time driver from Millers Racing Parts while Bert’s Racing Transmissions and Hoosier Tire Mid Atlantic and Lias Tire (American Racer) will also give away products to drivers.
The Battle at Lincoln will take place next Tuesday night as the Race of Champions Modifieds and the 358/360 Sprint Challenge will invade Lincoln Speedway in an event promoted by Bob Miller. Over 40 pre-entries have been received in both divisions. The modifieds will go in a 60-lap $5,000 to win show while the sprints go in a 30-lap $3,000 to win event. It will be the first modified appearance at Lincoln in over 25 years.
Lincoln and Port Royal Speedway’s will both have Kids Night this Saturday night.
Fred Rahmer was injured Monday night at Canada’s Autodrome Grandby Speedway after colliding with a lapped car on the final lap of the feature. Reports are that Rahmer has a broken sternum and concussion and left Canada on Tuesday to return home. Daryn Pittman won the feature.
Bedford Speedway has canceled its Super Sportsman event for next Friday, July 15th. The track had recently canceled its August URC show as well. It appears Bedford is trying to make a go of cheaper racing programs to make it through the remainder of the season.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
It’s another big weekend of racing coming up in Central Pennsylvania as we celebrate the Independence Day Holiday.
Of course, the 21st annual Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek will be in full swing as Port Royal Speedway will host the fifth night of action tonight. It will be Port’s first of two Speedweek events this season as they also host the series on Saturday night.
The crown jewel of Speedweek-the Mitch Smith Memorial-is set for Friday night at Williams Grove Speedway where the winner of the 30-lap event will take home a $10,000 payday.
Selinsgrove Speedway will present the Speedweek finale on Sunday night with its Jan Opperman Memorial and the 2011 PA Speedweek championship will also be decided.
The 358 Sprint cars have several weekend events planned with the Firecracker 30 Saturday night at Selinsgrove Speedway serving as the biggest paying weekend event for the division. The winner will take home $2,000 from that event, which will be lined up by time trials. Lincoln and Trail-Way Speedway also hosts the 358 Sprint cars this weekend.
The Late Model division has a few big events over the weekend as well with Bedford Speedway hosting a $3,000 to win Three State Flyers program on Friday. Despite the rumors circulating about the future of Bedford, according to the track website all purses have been secured for this event and the speedway will be putting some purse cuts and schedule changes as it battles financial issues this season.
Hagerstown Speedway will offer up the 46th annual Johnny Roberts Memorial, a 50-lap late model event on Saturday night. That race pays $2,500 to win.
Williams Grove Speedway will host the Firecracker 30 for the Super Sportsman on Saturday night, one of the bigger races on the schedule for the division.
The 358 late models will see action this weekend at Lincoln, Susquehanna and Hagerstown.
SHAFFER TOPS OHIO SPEEDWEEK
After a sluggish start to the season, Tim Shaffer is hitting his stride.
The Aliquippa driver turned in a great week during the 29th annual Ohio Speedweek and ended up capturing the overall series title.
Shaffer had two wins during the five races and never finished worse than third. He won the opener at Attica Raceway Park and then ended the series with a $10,000 win at Fremont Speedway.
Shaffer’s great week of racing also moved him to within three points of Dale Blaney for the All Star National tour points.
Blaney also won twice during the week, once at KC Raceway and again at Sharon Speedway while Kyle Sauder was the other winner at Limaland Motorsports Park. There were three events rained out.
Shaffer ended the week with 496 points defeating Blaney (472), Danny Holtgraver (465), Danny Smith (464) and Greg Wilson (464). Stevie Smith finished ninth in final Ohio points in the Zemco Sprinter.
PIT STOPS
New Jersey’s Jeff Hartman won Sunday night’s PA 600 Micro Speedweek event at Lincoln Speedway in a dominating performance over Mike Dicely, Jim Young, Ryan Smith and Brett Schoenly. Alex Schanz won the Sidewinder event at Lincoln over Brandon Yarlett, Chris Crull, Reed Salony and Keith Ford.
Paul Miller, of York passed away Sunday morning. A former race car driver himself, Miller was the only President in the history of the York County Racing Club since its inception back in 1979. Miller will be missed by all those he touched during the years. He is survived by his wife Karen, who remains active with the YCRC.
Port Royal Speedway had a little snafu with its scheduled new clay delivery last weekend. Eleven loads were trucked into the track and placed in turns one and two. However, when the trucks returned to the quarry for round two, they were informed that the screen broke that sifts the clay. Five trucks were loaded and brought back to the track. But there was a problem. Those five trucks had topsoil in them, not clay! Needless to say, the third and fourth turns did not get reclayed for this week’s events.
Donny Schatz won again on the WoO Sprint tour last weekend with a Saturday night win at Princeton Speedway over Jason Sides, Steve Kinser, Jason Meyers and Mark Dobmeier. The Outlaws were rained out on Sunday night in South Dakota.
The Central PA drivers competing for the All Star east region tour will have to pull an all-nighter following Selinsgrove’s Speedweek race Sunday night. The All Stars are slated to race Monday at Autodrome Granby Speedway in Quebec Canada and then another race on Tuesday at Autodrome Drummond followed by a Thursday event at New York’s Mohawk International Raceway. These events will be the final East region races until the November events at Screvens Speedway in Georgia. Lance Dewease is the current All Star east points leader as Daryn Pittman, Greg Hodnett, Fred Rahmer, Stevie Smith and Tyler Walker are all in the top 10 in points and will be at Selinsgrove on Sunday night as well.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
Speedweek-
2011 style is here. And where has the time gone?!
The 21st edition of the Pennsylvania Sprint Car Speedweek kicks off this
weekend and runs through next Sunday, July 3 when another champion will
be decided.
Several questions heading into the 2011 version of Speedweek will be,
can Greg Hodnett repeat as champion for a third consecutive year? How
will car and fan support be this year? How many nights will weather play
as a factor? And how will track conditions and the Speedweek format play
into the amount of winners we see during the eight races?
For the past two seasons, Hodnett has came away as the Speedweek
champion, then driving for now retired car owners Jim and Sandy Kline.
This year finds Hodnett piloting a car owned by John Trone but still has
the same ingredient that has helped him win three overall Speedweek
titles. That would be his crew chief Lee Stauffer.
But parts failures and more have kept Hodnett and company out of the
limelight much of this season, so does the team have what it takes to
put together eight nights of consistent runs to capture the title?
“You have to put yourself into position every time you go on the race
track and this year, you have to take advantage of starting spot more
than ever,” said the Thomasville racer. “Track conditions have played a
vital part as well but it’s the same for everyone. We’ll just go out and
give it our best shot but it takes a lot of hard work and commitment
from the entire team for the Speedweek deal.”
Last year, Hodnett finished with 1,122 total points and $22,900 in
winnings to seal the deal over runner-up Daryn Pittman, who had 1, 087
points and won $25,400 in winnings. Lance Dewease (951 points), Mark
Smith (908 points), Alan Krimes (887 points), Fred Rahmer (870 points),
Chad Layton (750 points), Danny Dietrich (706 points), Brent Marks (566
points) and Stevie Smith (559 points) were the top 10 in Speedweek
points a year ago.
Mark Smith (Lincoln), Ed Lynch, Jr. (Bedford), Tyler Walker (Grandview),
Krimes (Hagerstown), Dewease (Lincoln), Pittman (Williams Grove),
Hodnett (Port Royal) and Pittman (Selinsgrove) were Speedweek feature
winners last season.
Pennsylvania Speedweek kicks off Saturday night with the Kevin Gobrecht
Memorial at Lincoln followed by a Sunday night date on the big half mile
at Bedford. Monday serves as a Bedford raindate before Grandview takes
over action next Tuesday. Hagerstown hosts the series on Wednesday with
Port Royal’s first of two dates on Thursday. The Mitch Smith Memorial
will be up next Friday at Williams Grove followed by the second date at
Port Royal on Saturday, concluding next Sunday at Selinsgrove Speedway
with the Jan Opperman Memorial.
The format for this year’s Speedweek will be time trials with an
inversion for heat races. Then the top six drivers from time trials that
qualify through their heat race will redraw for the top six feature
starting spots.
Rahmer leads all drivers with 11 Speedweek titles while Hodnett and
Dewease each have three.
Last season, 77 different drivers competed in at least one Speedweek
race with 11 drivers making all eight starts. The average car count for
the series was 30.
So far in 2011, 22 different drivers have won one of 38 410 Sprint car
features ran in Central Pennsylvania.
PIT STOPS
The fifth annual Pennsylvania 600 Speedweek presented by TDF Promotions
also begins this weekend and runs through next week. The 600 Micro
Sprints will see action Saturday at Trail-Way Speedway followed by a
Sunday date at Lincoln Speedway, Monday at Path Valley before taking a
few nights off and returning next Thursday at Susquehanna, Friday at
Linda’s and ending next Saturday night at Lanco Speedway. Feature
winners will get a minimum of $1,000 with two shows paying at least
$2,000 to win and another night determined by car count. The overall 600
championship driver will earn $800 and the top 20 in points will be
paid. Heath Hehnly is the defending 600 Micro Sprint Speedweek champion.
Tim Shaffer and Dale Blaney were feature winners during the first two
nights of the O-Reilly All Star Ohio Speedweek over the weekend. Shaffer
won Friday at Attica Raceway Park over Danny Smith, Stevie Smith, Byron
Reed and Craig Mintz while Blaney took the win Saturday at KC Raceway
over Shaffer, Cole Duncan, Randy Hannagan and David Gravel. Ohio
Speedweek was rained out Sunday and Monday night.
Craig Dollansky swept World of Outlaws sprint car action last weekend at
River Cities Speedway in North Dakota. Friday’s win came over Donny
Schatz, Bill Rose, Steve Kinser and Joey Saldana while Saturday night,
Dollansky topped Jason Sides, Kinser, Saldana and Jason Meyers. The
Outlaws see action this weekend at Princeton Speedway (MN) and Huset’s
Speedway (SD). Schatz continues to lead the points.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
Austin Hubbard is the real deal in late model racing.
Just 19, the Seaford, Delaware racer is quickly making a name for himself in the tough world of super late model racing.
With some down time on his World of Outlaws late model schedule, Hubbard and his Dale Beitler, Trinity Transport owned race team competed in the third annual Appalachian Mountain Late Model Speedweek presented by CenturyLink here in the midstate area and walked away with the overall championship after an impressive week of action.
The 2010 WoO Late Model series Rookie of the Year had two wins during Speedweek, last Tuesday at Williams Grove Speedway followed by a win the following night at Lincoln Speedway.
Hubbard also had second place finishes at Hagerstown and Port Royal Speedway’s, a third at Winchester Speedway and a 10th at Roaring Knob Motorsports Complex. His worst finish of the week came in the series finale Friday night at Bedford Speedway where he blew a motor and was credited with 15th place.
Hubbard earned the $4,000 championship prize in commanding fashion garnering 1,007 total points compared to runner-up Vic Coffey’s 866. He finished third during the first ever Late Model Speedweek series back in 2009.
Hubbard joined Josh Richards and Rick Eckert as Speedweek champions. Ironically all three are regulars on the World of Outlaws tour.
The series saw five different drivers earn feature wins with Hubbard and Richards both winning twice with single wins going to Jimmy Mars, Matt Parks and Dan Stone. The series drew 112 different drivers during the seven nights of action.
24 AND COUNTING
I thought maybe, just maybe that the Pennsylvania Posse’s winning streak against the All Star Circuit of Champions was coming to an end Friday night at Williams Grove Speedway.
All Star king-pin Dale Blaney looked good all night, including his dominating Dash win which put him on the pole for the 30-lap feature. I thought Blaney had a legitimate shot at giving Guy Webb’s boys a win at the Grove.
Nope, didn’t happen!
Lance Dewease ended the streak with his win but either Dewease or Chad Layton were going to beat Blaney and keep the streak intact.
Layton led until his front wing broke. He did a fantastic job at attempting to keep the lead while piloting his bucking bronco of a sprint car. Dewease finally cleared him with five to go but Layton was able to keep Don Kreitz and Blaney at bay and finish in the runner-up spot.
Most likely, the All Stars will be back in 2012 looking to end the streak. They usually add about six cars to the field in Central PA.
PIT STOPS
The Super Sportsman feature was rained out Saturday night at Susquehanna Speedway after all qualifying was complete. With the feature lineup set, the Sportsman will now return to the York County track on August 27 to complete the makeup feature along with a complete show. This weekend, the Sportsman will make their one and only appearance at Port Royal Speedway.
The All Star sanctioned Ohio Speedweek kicks off this weekend and will continue through next Friday night. Attica Raceway Park will open the series on Friday night followed by Saturday at KC Speedweek, Sunday at Millstream Speedway, Monday at Waynesfield Raceway Park, Tuesday at Fremont Speedway , Wednesday at Sharon Speedway, an open night to catch some air on Thursday followed by the series finale paying $10,000 next Friday back at Fremont. David Gravel is the defending Ohio Speedweek point champion. Gravel earned zero dollars for his 2010 championship as the title pays nothing. Daryn Pittman and Stevie Smith are scheduled to compete next week as his NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne.
Buttonwood Campground will host Port Royal speedway and the PA Sports Network this Saturday along the Juniata River from 8am until noon. Several drivers are slated to either appear in person or take part in the radio show as race cars are also slated to be on display. Drivers scheduled to appear include Keith Kauffman, Brian Towsey, Patrick Bryner, Gary Beward and Daryl Stimeling.
Speaking of Kauffman, he knows how to celebrate turning 61 years old! How about go out and win another 410 sprint car race at the Port. Kauffman led all 25 laps, slicing and dicing through lapped traffic to give his car owners Gary and Linda Heckman their first career 410 sprint car win last weekend.
While we are on the Port Royal kick, the track is expected to lay new clay next weekend on all fou corners of the speedway. The new clay will be put on right before the track hosts two Speedweek shows. It will be interesting to see what kind of surface this provides race teams as it won’t even be five days old when race cars hit it for the Thursday night Speedweek show.
Sammy Swindell won the WoO Sprint car main at Knoxville Raceway last Saturday night while four-time champion Donny Schatz has returned to the top of the WoO points standings after another top five finish. He leads Joey Saldana by one point heading into this weekend’s event at River Cities Speedway.
Email reaches me at
Bvores@comcast.net.
The O’Reilly All Star Circuit of Champions are back in Central Pennsylvania this weekend for another showdown with the Pennsylvania Posse.
And it will be the same story as it has been for years. The Posse will continue to rule and show the few All Star teams that invade the area the fast way around both Williams Grove and Lincoln Speedway’s.
The Posse winning streak at the Grove stands at 23 straight wins after the beat down in the first All Star appearance of the year back in April at the track. Steve Buckwalter led an all Posse top 10 across the finish that night followed by Rick Lafferty, Alan Krimes, Curt Michael and Stevie Smith.
Saturday night’s appearance at Lincoln Speedway will be the first of the season by the traveling series and while an All Star regular has won in the Pigeon Hills, it hasn’t happened much and it won’t happen again this weekend.
Friday’s Grove appearance will be the final of the season by the All Stars while it will be the one and only visit to Lincoln in 2011.
Both races are part of the All Star East region series which is currently led by Dale Blaney with Lance Dewease, Daryn Pittman, Stevie Smith and Greg Hodnett the current top five in east region points.
The East Region tour will then head to New York’s Utica Rome Speedway for a Sunday night show.
Last Sunday, the All Stars East were in competition at Clinton County Speedway where it was Dewease scoring the win over Justin Henderson, Sam Hafertepe, Jr., Hodnett and Mark Smith.
LATE MODEL SPEEDWEEK CONTINUES
The third annual Appalachian Mountain Late Model Speedway continues through Friday night.
The Speedweek kicked off last Saturday at Hagerstown Speedway where 48 cars signed in for competition and when it was all said and done, Jimmy Mars came out on top of his first ever late model feature at the Hub City oval.
Late Model Speedweek continued Sunday night at Winchester Speedway where it was defending WoO Late Model champion Josh Richards scoring the big win over Jeremy Miller, Austin Hubbard, DJ Myers, Rick Eckert, Frankie Plessinger, Dan Stone, JT Spence, Duane Harbaugh and Jason Covert. Fifty late models signed in for action Sunday night.
Roaring Knob Motorsports Complex hosted the Speedweek series for the first time ever on Monday night where 46 cars were in action.
And for the second straight night, Richards came out on top of the event, this time over Covert, Vic Coffey, Jamie Lathroum, Eckert, Jared Hawkins, Miller, Keith Jackson, Nick Dickson and Hubbard.
Speedweek moved to the Williams Grove Speedway for a Tuesday night show where Delaware’s Hubbard best the 47-car field for his first win of the series. Hubbard took the lead from Eckert and drove to the $5,000 win and maintained his Speedweek points lead heading into last night’s show at Lincoln Speedway.
Eckert, Dylan Yoder, Gary Stuhler and Covert were the top five with Grove 358 late model point leader Gene Knaub sixth over Duane Harbaugh, Kenny Pettyjohn, Coffey and Coleby Frye.
Lincoln Speedway played host to Speedweek last night while the series moves to Port Royal tonight and will conclude tomorrow night at Bedford Speedway where the awards program for the week will also be held.
PIT STOPS
Pat Cannon won Tuesday night's 358 Sprint car feature at Williams Grove Speedway. The win was the seventh of the season for the Zane and Vicki Highlands owned team. Cannon defeated Chad Trout, Brian Garland, Glenndon Forsythe and Scott Geesey.
Logan Wagner captured Sunday’s 305 Sprint portion of the All Sprint Nationals at Path Valley Speedway. It was his fifth win of the season and it came over his older brother Michael, Mark Watkins, Jim Kennedy and Justin Zap. Sean McAndrew won the 270 Micro Sprint main over Ryan McAndrew, Mike Boyer, Levi Peck and Steven Cox while Tyler Walton was the 600 Micro winner over Kenny Edkin, Jerry Schott, Travis Scott and Jason Sechrist. Jim Young was the Sidewinders winner over Keith Ford, Rich Halter, Reed Salony and Donnie Hendershott.
Paul McMahan and Steve Kinser were World of Outlaws winners last weekend. McMahan’s second straight win came Friday at Belleville High Banks over Craig Dollansky, Jason Meyers, Kerry Madsen and Joey Saldana while Kinser, broken wrist and all won Saturday night’s event at Lakeside Speedway over Brian Brown, Cody Darrah, Sammy Swindell and Jason Meyers. The Outlaws will be at Knoxville Raceway this weekend for the only tune-up prior to the Knoxville Nationals coming up in August.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
For the third time in his career, Fred Rahmer is the Keystone Cup 410 Sprint Series champion.
Four races were completed out of the six scheduled events and Rahmer’s worst finish was a third place at Lincoln Speedway.
Throw in runner-up finishes at Grandview Speedway and Selinsgrove Speedway then a final night win at Big Diamond Raceway, the week belonged to the Salfordville driver and the Chad and Jenn Clemens owned sprint car team.
Rahmer easily defeated 2010 Keystone Cup champion Daryn Pittman 630-534. Aaron Ott (458), Sam Hafertepe,Jr. (441) and Lance Dewease (435) were the top five in points. Greg Hodnett, Mark Smith, Chad Layton, Stevie Smith and Justin Henderson completed the top 10 in final points.
Rahmer credited his great week and recent resurgence to his crew chief Barry Jackson of Carlisle.
Brian Leppo won the Grandview event, Brian Montieth won at Lincoln, Greg Hodnett won at Selinsgrove and Rahmer won Big Diamond. Port Royal and Williams Grove were canceled.
All four winning drivers started on the front row of the feature and led every lap, in which most of the features did not include much passing for position back through the field.
The average car count was 25 for the four nights of racing, ranging from a high of 35 at Lincoln to a low of 17 at Big Diamond.
LATE MODELS UP NEXT
The third edition of the Appalachian Mountain Late Model Speedweek presented by Century Link kicks off this weekend and runs through next week around the area.
Large fields of late models are expected throughout the week including the area’s best racers joined by top World of Outlaw racers Josh Richards, Rick Eckert, Vic Coffey, Austin Hubbard while Brady Smith and Jimmy Mars have told series organizers they plan to be in competition.
Hagerstown Speedway kicks off Speedweek on Saturday night followed by a Sunday night stop at Winchester Speedway. The series then heads to the Roaring Knob Motorsports Complex Monday followed by consecutive stops at Williams Grove, Lincoln and Port Royal Speedway’s concluding next Friday night at Bedford Speedway.
Each race pays $5,000 to win with the exception of Lincoln, where its Charlie Grinestaff Memorial pays $7,000 to the winner.
York’s Rick Eckert is the defending Late Model Speedweek champion and is also the current WoO Late Model points leader.
PIT STOPS
Former Lincoln Speedway thundercar champion Mike Zeigler, Sr. lost
his battle with cancer on Tuesday. Zeigler’s sons Mike, Jr. and Cam
both race in the area. Services for the Spring Grove Resident will
be Sunday night at the Irwin Funeral Home in Spring Grove from 6-9pm
and again Monday from 10-11am. Rest in Peace Mike…
Eric Tomecek is the 2011 Central PA 358 Sprint Point Series Most Popular driver after winning a tournament style voting contest online over the past few weeks. Tomecek beat Arron Spahr by a mere 20 votes to win the title. He drives for John Westbrook Racing.
The Weldon Sterner Memorial for 410 Sprints is up next this weekend at Lincoln Speedway while Port Royal plays host to the Eastern Storm USAC NonWing sprint cars.
URC pays its first visit to Williams Grove on Friday night in the $3,000 to win MACH 1Chassis 360 Challenge at the Grove. This event should draw a good field of cars. The 410 Sprints are also on the program.
Trail-Way Speedway will have two 358 Sprint features Friday night. One will be a makeup from last Friday night’s rained out event.
Paul McMahan and Jason Sides were winners on the World of Outlaws Sprint tout last weekend. The top six drivers in points are separated by less than 100 points.
Email reaches me at Bvores@comcast.net.
This seems a little weird in saying this but
Central Pennsylvania saw two veteran drivers capture their first
career 358 Sprint car feature wins this past weekend.
Then throw in another track champion winning his first career race
at another area speedway and it makes for some good competition
among the ranks of the 358 sprint car division here in Central
Pennsylvania.
Cris Eash and Brook Weibley, one two members of the Pennsylvania
Posse 410 sprint car circuit visited victory lane for the first time
in their limited sprint career. Eash won Friday night at Trail-Way
Speedway while Weibley was a Saturday night winner at Lincoln
Speedway. Both are long time veterans of sprint car racing in the
area.
Logan Schuchart, the 2010 Lincoln Speedway track champion visited
Williams Grove Speedway victory lane for the first time ever on
Friday night at the age of 18.
These three drivers joined 13 other drivers who have won 358 Sprint
car features so far this season in the midstate area.
For Schuchart, the Grove win helped in his bid to dethrone Pat
Cannon as track champion this season.
“We want to try and win the Grove championship this year along with
the overall title,” said Schuchart who will be a Senior in the fall
at Spring Grove High School. “It was cool to win at the Grove but
I’d say my biggest win was at Lincoln. It’s taken us a while to get
one at the Grove but we brought out the new car Friday and won with
it. The track conditions haven’t been that good there lately so I
haven’t been liking the Grove very much except for Friday night.
They had the track pretty nice and I could run just about anywhere I
wanted to.”
For Eash, his win came for car owner Brian Bruckner, of Carlisle.
Bruckner put the Hanover driver behind the wheel of his car after
he retired from racing last season due to a back injury. Eash
currently leads the points at Trail-Way.
Weibley, of York Springs had two career wins at Lincoln in the 410
Sprints before going into retirement a few years ago. Weibley
returned to action last season and it didn’t take long to return to
the winner’s circle.
Following this past weekend, Lincoln and Trail-Way have yet to see
a repeat winner in the division. Seven different drivers have won at
Lincoln while five different drivers won at Trail-Way.
Three different winners have won at Williams Grove in five races
and four at Selinsgrove in six events.
Schuchart currently leads the Central PA 358 Sprint points over
Billy Dietrich, Pat Cannon, Jeff Rohrbaugh and Blane Heimbach but
there are still a lot of races to go and a lot of talent yet to
reach the winners circle. The winner earns a cool $6,000.
“There are a lot of good drivers and Cannon’s always good and Billy
Dietrich’s been running good lately,” said Schuchart, the grandson
of legend Bobby Allen. “There are good cars everywhere you go and I
just enjoy racing wherever we go. Usually we are pretty consistent
but we still have room for improvement. But we’d like to challenge
for both titles this year.”
All of these drivers and the rest of the 358 sprint teams return to
the track this weekend with events scheduled at Trail-Way,
Selinsgrove and Port Royal Speedway’s.
BOUNTY WITH A TWIST
Gene Knaub has won all four 358 late model features this season at
Williams Grove.
So this Saturday night, the Dover driver will have a $200 bounty on
his head for any driver that can be him in competition on the track.
But track owner Kathy Hughes has made this interesting and should
Knaub win a fifth straight time, he will earn a $300 bonus.
My money is on Knaub to keep the streak alive!
PIT STOPS
Daryn Pittman defeated the All Star Circuit of Champions last
weekend at Mercer Raceway Park. Pittman’s win came a week after his
win over the World of Outlaws in the Heffner Racing sprinter.
Pittman also won a regular show Friday night at Lernerville
Speedway.
Logan Wagner made it four straight wins on the PA 305 Sprint Series
tour with a win at Port Royal Speedway last Saturday. Wagner has yet
to be defeated on the tour this season. The 305 Sprints are back at
the Port this weekend.
Keystone Cup for the 410 sprints begins tonight at Grandview
Speedway and then continues Thursday at Port Royal Speedway followed
by Friday night action at Williams Grove, Saturday at Port Royal,
Sunday at Selinsgrove and Monday at Big Diamond. Time trials set the
stage each night and will go a long way in the feature format for
this year’s KC events.
Donny Schatz finally returned to victory lane with the World of
Outlaws as he won Friday night at Attica Raceway Park. The Outlaws
will be Live on the SPEED Channel Friday night from the Dirt Track
at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The Bill Heckert Memorial for Super Sportsman is on tap this
weekend for the Super Sportsman at the Grove. The race honors the
memory of the longtime veteran who lost his life in a racing
accident at Silver Spring Speedway. The Sportsman are also in action
at Selinsgrove along with the Keystone Cup.
Email reaches me at
Bvores@comcast.net.
The
first big week of the 2011 Central Pennsylvania 410 Sprint car season is
up next as the fifth annual Keystone Cup 410 Sprint Week is slated to
kick off next Wednesday night.
The Keystone Cup, which originated back in 2007 will kick off at
Bechtelsville’s Grandview Speedway next Wednesday, May 25 then will head
to Port Royal Speedway the following night, Williams Grove Speedway on
Friday, Lincoln Speedway on Saturday, Selinsgrove Speedway on Sunday and
concluding on Memorial Day Monday at Big Diamond Raceway.
Last season, Daryn Pittman had a dominating week as he gave car owner
Mike Heffner his first Keystone Cup championship after scoring three
wins during the week. Pittman, of Owasso, Oklahoma won three straight
events last year at Hagerstown Speedway, Williams Grove and Selinsgrove.
Hagerstown has dropped from the series this season. Tyler Walker
(Grandview) and Mike Erdley (Port Royal) were other winners last season.
Pittman outdistanced Walker in Keystone Cup points in 2010 garnering
785 points compared to Walker’s 614. Stevie Smith, Lance Dewease and
Fred Rahmer were the top five in KC points a year ago.
WAGNER ON FIRE
Harrisonville’s Logan Wagner is the hottest thing going on the PA 305
Sprint Series so far this season.
Wagner, a commercial pilot by trade, has won all three 305 features
this season aboard the Wagner Motorsports No. 7W sprinter. He captured
the opener at Susquehanna Speedway then won at Path Valley Speedway and
backed that up with win number three last Friday night at Clinton
County.
Wagner, the youngest son of 410 sprint veteran Mike Wagner is also
racing a 358 Sprint car this season owned by Steve Rucker and nearly won
at Lincoln two weeks ago. He led half of the race and was running a
close runner-up on the final lap when he crashed.
Wagner will be looking to make it five 305 sprint car wins this weekend
as the PA Sprint Series competes at Path Valley and Port Royal.
PIT STOPS
Friday night will be the first night of points handicapping for the 410
sprint division at Williams Grove Speedway. With so many rainouts and
then recent time trial shows, this show has been pushed back to mid May
this year. The bonus money put into effect last season will also be up
for grabs Friday night. The Grove’s start time will be 8pm starting this
weekend.
The Saturday Night Series returns to Williams Grove this weekend with
another $5 admission to the grandstand for the three-division show.
The Morgan Cup Challenge pitting five World of Outlaws and five
Pennsylvania Posse has been rescheduled for July 22 as part of the
Summer Nationals. The race was rained out last weekend at Williams
Grove.
Email reaches me at
Bvores@comcast.net.
It’s time for a new streak to begin this
weekend!
The World of Outlaws return to Williams Grove Speedway Friday
and Saturday night for the Spring visit and it’s time for the
Posse to start a new winning streak against the traveling stars.
Sammy Swindell put an end to a Posse stranglehold on the
Outlaws with his win in the Williams Grove National Open last
October. Up until that race, the Posse had a nine race winning
streak against the World of Outlaws.
Greg Hodnett has carried the Posse banner during that winning
streak, earning five out of the nine feature wins driving for
now retired car owners Jim and Sandy Kline. Hodnett won the
Summer Nationals and the preliminary night of the National Open
last season and will be looking to start a new streak while
giving new car owner John Trone and the Trone Outdoor
Motorsports team.
Other Posse winners last season included Chad Layton, Fred
Rahmer and Lance Dewease.
And there will be even more bragging rights during this
weekend’s first of three season visits by the Outlaws as the
inaugural Morgan Cup challenge will pit five Outlaws versus five
Posse with the winning claiming the “Cup” which will be
displayed in the winning team’s front office. That Cup will look
great sitting on track owner Kathy Hughes’ desk overlooking
Williams Grove for the remainder of the season.
The field for the 12-lap $11,000 event include defending WoO
Champion Jason Meyers, four time WoO champ Donny Schatz, Jason
Sides, Paul McMahan and Kraig Kinser representing the invaders
while Hodnett, Daryn Pittman, Stevie Smith, Brian Montieth and
Dewease will represent the Posse.
So far this season on the Outlaw tour, only five drivers have
visited victory lane in 14 events run. Steve Kinser leads with
four wins while Joey Saldana and Swindell each have three wins
while Sides and Craig Dollansky have won twice.
Meanwhile on the Posse tour, 17 different drivers have scored a
win in 20 features, once again showing the ultra competitiveness
of the Posse.
Qualifying begins both nights at 7:30pm and there will be
fireworks both nights.
BIG NIGHT AT LINCOLN
The revival of the Sprint Car Spectacular will take place this
weekend as Lincoln Speedway will host the special race on Sunday
night.
The event that benefit’s the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing in
York Springs was always a big sprint car event at the now
defunct Silver Spring Speedway.
The event will be showcased by a $5,000 to win 30-lap 410
Sprint car event that will see Outlaw regulars Lucas Wolfe and
Cody Darrah in competition along with All Star champ Tim
Shaffer.
NASCAR Sprint Cup star Kasey Kahne confirmed Wednesday that he
plans to be in competition driving a Roth Motorsports sprint
car.
The event will support EMMR’s Phase IV museum expansion which
is nearing completion of a major 6,000 square foot addition at
the Latimore Valley grounds.
The event will be sponsored by Apple Automotive Group and
begins at 7pm.
PIT STOPS
It will be a big night at Selinsgrove Speedway on Saturday
night as the 31st NRG Controls North Jack Gunn Memorial for
360/358 Sprint cars is on tap. The event will pay $3,500 to win
and should attract a large field of cars. Pat Cannon and the
Zane Highlands owned team will be looking to score the big
victory in this event after losing the last two years on the
final turn of the race. Cannon will have a 360 powered motor
under the hood of the Highlands sprinter…
Joey Saldana won the WoO event at Eldora Speedway last Friday
over Sam Hafertepe, Schatz, McMahan and Greg Wilson while
Saturday’s show was rained out…
York’s Rick Eckert captured his first win on the WoO Late Model
tour last Saturday night at Swainsboro Raceway in Georgia. The
win came on the same day his daughter graduated from
Millersville University. Eckert had to miss her graduation for a
good reason. He currently sits on top of the WoO late model tour
points. He finished fourth Sunday night at Needmore Speedway.
The Outlaws head to Delaware International Speedway and
Winchester (VA) Speedway this week…
Email reaches me at
Bvores@comcast.net…
Nobody asked me but…
A big thumbs up to the new Port Royal Speedway management
and Todd Weikert working so hard to make the Bob Weikert
Memorial something special to honor of the best sprint car
owners in the history of the sport. The event lost some
appeal in recent years but this year the night was a nice
memorial with a great payoff for drivers to go after.
And how cool was it to see Tyler Walker in a Weikert
Livestock painted car start alongside Aaron Ott in the
Hamilton Motorsports No. 77 in the first heat race last
Saturday night. The race was won by Walker but neither
driver were contenders during the feature event.
Once again, the Pennsylvania Posse dominated the All Stars
during their first east coast appearance over the weekend.
While Dale Blaney did contend and finish second at Port,
only four All Star drivers along with Kerry Madsen were
considers “outsiders” to start the A-Main. And Friday night
at Williams Grove, no All Star regular finished in the top
ten. We’ll see if they put on a better show the next time
they are in Pennsylvania in early June.
After last weekend’s 410 Sprint car events, we saw two new
winners emerge bringing the total of different drivers to
win so far in 2011 to 14. That’s 14 different winners in
just 17 features. Greg Hodnett and Cory Haas added their
name to the winner list and there are still some pretty good
sprint car drivers yet to win this season.
Over on the 358 Sprint car side of things, there have been
10 different winners in 14 races so far in Central
Pennsylvania.
Leading the list on the 358 sprint car side is Pat Cannon
who won for the first time Saturday night at Selinsgrove
Speedway after three straight DNF’s at the big track. Cannon
broke the MACH-1 winning streak with the win and will be
tough to beat for a few weeks with his low point average.
Heading into last Saturday night’s racing program at
Lincoln Speedway, Fred Rahmer was leading the 410 Sprints
and Niki Young led the 358 Sprint points. Rahmer headed to
Port Royal Saturday night and fell to ninth in points while
Young competed at the track and dropped from first to 10th
in 358 sprint points.
Friday night will serve as an “Outlaw Tuneup” for the 410
Sprints at Williams Grove Speedway as they prepare for next
week’s invasion by the World of Outlaws. I wish track
officials would utilize the entire WoO program format for
these Tuneup races instead of just using time trials.
After his third win of the season last week on the World of
Outlaws tour, we wonder if Sammy Swindell will chase the WoO
point chase. Swindell finds himself in the fifth spot in
points, just 77 points out of the top spot. Swindell
defeated Paul McMahan, points leader Joey Saldana, Kraig
Kinser and Craig Dollansky Saturday at Tri-State Speedway.
While this happened about 16 hours west of the midstate,
how cool was it to see Carson McCarl win in his first ever
start at Knoxville Raceway last Saturday night in a 305
Sprint car. Just 16 years old, the son of Knoxville kingpin
Terry McCarl became the youngest winner in the history of
the race track.
Could Stevie Smith’s appearance in an Elite Racing owned
sprint car Tuesday night with the Outlaws be a full-time gig
in 2012? I guess time will tell.
One of the largest fields of the season anywhere in this
area assembled in the pits at Hagerstown Speedway for the
first ever Steel Block Bandits event at the track. The race
was won by late model regular J.T. Spence. There were 52
cars pitside for this event. I believe the only other event
to top this car count was the Race of Champions opening
weekend at Selinsgrove Speedway.
Email reaches me at
Bvores@comcast.net.
Total domination would be the way to describe
the Pennsylvania Posse versus the All Star Circuit of Champions.
And with the first invasion by Guy Webb’s group of drivers at
Williams Grove and Port Royal Speedway this weekend, don’t look
for much to change.
The All Stars have been shut out 22-0 at Williams Grove while
there’s no race count at Port Royal but no All Star regular has
ever won at the Juniata County oval either.
Williams Grove will kick off the All Star weekend with a Friday
night Diamond Series event paying $5,000 to win. Last season,
Lance Dewease and Stevie Smith were victorious in Williams Grove
All Star sanctioned events.
But the big weekend event will take place Saturday night when
Port Royal will honor the late great car owner Bob Weikert in
the Bob Weikert Memorial.
The money for this event has grown by leaps and bounds during
the week and as it sits now, should a driver led all 30 laps of
the event, he will take home no less than $10,150 for his
night’s work.
Thanks to a huge amount of race sponsors, each lap of
Saturday’s 30-lap feature will pay at least $100 to the leader.
The final lap has a posted $500 on top of the already big payoff
to win the main event.
To honor the late car owner, the Keen Motorsports sprinter
piloted by Tyler Walker will field the familiar Weikert
Livestock No. 29 paint scheme for this event.
The drivers won’t be the only lucky ones during the event as
Weikert’s Livestock will give away 20 prize beef packages
including five pound boxes of hamburger patties and 10-pound
boxes of hot dogs. There will also be giveaways for kids as
well.
While the Posse have dominated the All Stars and most likely
will do so this weekend, two-time defending All Star champion
Tim Shaffer will certainly provide the best competition from the
travelers. Shaffer won the Knoxville Nationals last season and
will challenge the best of the Posse including Walker, Fred
Rahmer, Greg Hodnett, Daryn Pittman, Lance Dewease, Brian Leppo,
Brian Montieth and more.
PIT STOPS
Mach 1 Chassis is undefeated at Selinsgrove Speedway so far in
2011. Blane Heimbach won the first two events and Carlisle’s
Jason Shultz was the winner last weekend. Look for that streak
to end soon with defending track champion Pat Cannon puts his
bad luck behind him and starts picking off wins. Cannon has the
lowest point average at the track which means he will be
starting up front for a few weeks and the wins will start
coming…
Hagerstown Speedway will play host to the first ever Steel
Block Bandit event Saturday night. The event will pay $4,100 and
it will be interesting to see what the car count is for this
division…
The Super Sportsman return to Williams Grove Speedway for the
Saturday Night Series this weekend. The Sportsman tour has been
rained out the past two Saturday night’s…
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series will be in action Friday
at Bedford Speedway with $10,000 going to the feature winner.
The event will have a Sunday night raindate…
Williams Grove’s Friday night series had only three rainouts
all of 2010. So far this season, four events have already been
lost to the weather. Could this be another season like 2009 when
the track saw nearly half of its scheduled races rained out…
Lincoln Speedway will have two 358 Sprint car features this
Saturday night along with a regular program of 410 Sprints. Last
week’s 358 Sprint car feature was postponed due to rain…
Email reaches me at
Bvores@comcast.net…
Change is to make the form, nature, content, future
course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what
it would be if left alone.
And often times, change is met with harsh criticism or resistance
from most people.
The new promotional team at Port Royal Speedway announced some
major changes in lineup procedures for the remainder of the season
for all three regular Saturday night divisions.
Led by Steve O’Neal, the new procedures will include a pill draw
for starting position in heat races with the top two finishers in
each heat race redrawing for preferred feature starting spots. The
remainder of the cars will be lined up heads up based on their heat
race finish.
Because of the change, a bonus package has been put in place for
all three divisions as well.
If any of the redraw preferred position starters opt to give up his
or her spot and take the feature green from the 11th starting spot,
that driver will be eligible for a bonus should he or she win the
feature event.
Also any other regularly scheduled starter slated to go green from
11th to last place in the field will also be eligible for the bonus.
And the final part of the new rules will be the driver who wins
this week can start no higher than 11th the following week in the
feature event.
Former Port Royal track champion Mike Erdley thinks the new lineup
system will be some new excitement and enthusiasm for his race team.
“I’m all for it right now, because I am sitting second in points
right now,’ said the Elizabethville sprint car racer. “Every
Saturday when I leave the race shop, I know I’m gonna start eighth
or ninth in my heat and I’m gonna start 10th, 11th or 12th in the
feature. At least when I leave now, I know I have a better chance at
a better starting spot. It kind of adds a little bit of excitement
for me and it gives me a little more enthusiasm. I like change and I
think people need to give it a chance.”
Erdley, driver of the Randy Lisi owned Lisi Shell sprinter doesn’t
feel the new lineup procedures will hurt racing.
“I really don’t think it will take away from the racing to be
honest,” he added. “Even if you have a Lance Dewease or a Tyler
Walker on the front row, you still could have a Doug Esh of Chad
Layton starting right beside or right behind them. All of the time
trial shows are normally won from the front row and those shows are
always packed with fans. So I really don’t think that will be an
issue.”
Erdley also likes the idea of the feature winner one week having to
start 11th or worse the following week.
“It gives everyone a chance and that’s a good thing,” he stated. “I
think that it should have been done, that way you don’t have someone
that wins from the front row one week, then come back and draw the
pole again. It gives somebody else a chance and I think that’s
fair.”
However, Erdley feels more than two drivers should be part of the
feature redraw.
“I don’t know if two cars to redraw is enough,” he said. “If you
get a stacked heat with a couple of good cars in front of you, you
don’t have a chance if you start in the back. But I guess that’s the
chance you take and maybe the following week it will work out in
your favor.”
Erdley doesn’t see the new rule really drawing any more cars
though.
“I honestly don’t think there are that many more cars out there to
get and I don’t think you’re going to see cars come out of the
woodwork just because of this change,” he stated.
Erdley feels that other local speedway’s will evaluate Port Royal’s
move and see how it goes and possibly make some changes in the
future.
He ended by saying “no matter what you do, you’re not going to
please everybody but I think this gives everyone a chance at a good
starting spot.”
Port Royal’s new rules go into affect this Saturday night and you
can bet the entire Central Pennsylvania sprint car world will be
watching to see what happens.
PIT STOPS
Williams Grove Speedway has the Tommy Classic honoring the late
Tommy Hinnershitz on tap Friday night with $6,000 going to the
feature winner of the 410 Sprint car main. The following night,
Lincoln Speedway will also have a special $4,000 to win Spring
Classic on the agenda…
Saturday night at Susquehanna Speedway Park, it will be Hometown
Heroes night with drivers from the towns of Carlisle and Newville
along with several other Lancaster/York County towns in the
spotlight. Fans from the towns will be admitted free with proper
identification…
The Saturday Night Series returns to Williams Grove Speedway this
weekend with $5 grandstand admission for the three-division show…
The Three State Flyers late model series kicks off its 2011 season
with a 35-lap, $3,000 to win event Saturday at Hagerstown Speedway…
Email reaches me at
Bvores@comcast.net…
Derek Sell is “Racing for the Cure” in 2011.
The young Royersford 410 sprint car racer is looking for support
from the Central Pennsylvania sprint car fan base for the Alex’s
Lemonade Stand Foundation.
“I’m always looking for ways to teach Derek to appreciate his
ability to race 410 sprint cars and look for ways to give back
through his racing,” said Derek’s dad Rob Sell, owner of the Sell
Racing sprint car team.
Derek has chosen Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation to support
through Sell Racing and he needs the sprint car community to step up
to the plate. ALSF is an organization that raises funds for research
into childhood cancers.
“We have our own special page on their website at
www.alexslemonade.org/mypage/70858,” said Rob Sell. “Fans can
either visit the website or they may also make a $10 donation on
behalf of Sell Racing by texting “LEMONADE E70858 to 85944. We are
hoping to raise $1,000 within the racing community for this great
foundation.”
Sell, just 17 years old tied his career best finish last Saturday
night at Lincoln Speedway where he finished fourth in the 25-lap
feature. He also had a fourth place last season during his rookie
410 season at the track.
Originally from Honolulu, Hawaii, Sell and his sprint car team have
an aggressive 66-race schedule this season on the tough Central
Pennsylvania racing circuit.
The team will also be hosting several driver/car autograph sessions
to raise awareness throughout the year at local tracks.
For more information please visit,
www.alexslemonade.org or
www.dereksell.com.
THE STREAK ENDS
If we had to pick one of the nine drivers who won one of the first
nine 410 Sprint car events heading into last week to repeat, it
would have been Brian Montieth.
And sure enough, it was Montieth who ended the different driver
winning streak with his impressive Saturday night win at Lincoln
Speedway.
But with Steve Buckwalter and Aaron Ott’s wins last weekend, we are
now at 11 different winners in 12 events.
PIT STOPS
Aaron Ott won for the first time this season Sunday at Susquehanna
Speedway Park, leading all 25 laps in the win over Danny Dietrich,
Greg Hodnett (up from 15th), Brian Montieth (up from 24th) and Mark
Smith. Steve Buckwalter won the ARDC Midget event. Coleby Frye won
the 358 late model main Saturday over Steve Billet and Randy
Christine, Jr. while Logan Wagner won the PA 305 Sprints and Doug
Bennett won the street stocks.
Williams Grove Speedway’s Saturday Night Series boasted a nice car
count of 84 different race cars in three divisions. Thirty-three
Sportsman, 29 late models and 22 street stocks filled the pits on
opening night…
Scott Zellers, crew chief on three time champion Brian Montieth’s
sprint car, will compete in the Central PA Legend series this
Saturday night at Lincoln Speedway…
Email reaches me at
Bvores@comcast.net…
There is a new streak going on in Central
Pennsylvania.
Last season the streak was how many wins could the Pennsylvania
Posse gets over the World of Outlaws at Williams Grove. That
streak ended at nine.
Following last week’s 410 Sprint car features, the new streak is
different winners so far this season.
So the pressing question is who will be the first driver to
repeat as a winner or how long will the new streak go on? It
could easily be a toss up.
So far we have seen Brian Montieth, Doug Esh, Lance Dewease,
Stevie Smith, Danny Dietrich, Blane Heimbach, Brent Marks, Mike
Bittinger and Ryan Taylor visit victory lane at area speedway’s
in 2011.
Of those nine drivers, six of them had at least two wins last
season so it’s quite possible that the streak ends this week
with names like Montieth, Dewease, Dietrich, Esh and Marks on
the win list already.
However, missing from victory lane this year include nine more
drivers that scored at least two wins a year ago and are all
more than capable of breaking into the win column this weekend.
Daryn Pittman, Fred Rahmer, Greg Hodnett, Tyler Walker, Chad
Layton, Mark Smith, Alan Krimes, Don Kreitz and Cory Haas were
all multi-time feature winners a year ago and all of these
drivers will most likely win again this season, it’s just a
matter of when.
A year ago, 31 different drivers won a 410 Sprint car feature in
Central PA. How high will that number climb this season or will
we see some big years by several drivers that will keep the
different driver win count a little lower.
No one knows but what will we be talking about this time next
week?
At this point, Friday night doesn’t look good weather-wise but I
will say we will have winners 10 and 11 following Saturday night
racing and Sunday will be the key night whether or not the
streak continues.
WHAT’S HAPPENING
The Late Models join the 410 Sprints Friday at Williams Grove
with the late model feature serving as the Appalachian Mountain
LM Speedweek qualifier.
Trail-Way will attempt to open the Friday night gates with 358
Sprints on Friday while Saturday night will be the final 6pm
start for Lincoln this season featuring 410 Sprints and 358
Sprints. Port Royal goes with another regular show featuring 410
Sprints and late models while the late models join the card
Saturday night at Selinsgrove. Hagerstown is back with another
regular show highlighted by the late models on Saturday as well.
Susquehanna enters the mix this weekend with a double weekend
card kicking off with the Saturday Night Series featuring 358
late models and 305 Sprints on Saturday and then the 410 Sprints
and ARDC midgets on Sunday.
The Saturday Night Series featuring the Super Sportsman and 358
late models kicks off this weekend at Williams Grove.
Micro Sprint racing is also on tap at Path Valley and Trail-Way
over the weekend.
PIT STOPS
John Trone, owner of Trone Outdoor Motorsports will hold an
auction coming up on Saturday, April 16th beginning at 9am at
his race shop at 6009 Pigeon Hill Road in Spring Grove. The
auction will be to sell off excess sprint car inventory from
past racing seasons. This auction has nothing to do with Trone’s
current team and driver Greg Hodnett. For more information on
the sale, visit www.greghodnettmotorsports.com. Items available
include 410 sprint car motors, J & J Chassis, Maxim Chassis,
rears, new and used top and front wings, two trailers, a
Kawasaki mule and many spare race parts…
The URC Sprint series opens its season Saturday night at
Bridgeport Speedway as Curt Michael will be looking to defend
his 2010 URC championship…
Tyler Walker suffered a fractured fibula last Saturday at Port
Royal but will not miss any action in the Keen Motorsports
sprinter…
Sammy Swindell and Jason Sides won on the World of Outlaws tour
last weekend in California. Swindell won at Merced Speedway over
Tim Kaeding, Sides, Jonathon Allard and Donny Schatz while Sides
won at Calistoga over Craig Dollansky, Kyle Larson, points
leader Joey Saldana and Jason Meyers…
The All Star Sprints open its Ohio Series this weekend at Attica
Raceway Park…
Applications are now being accepted for the 11th annual Kevin
Gobrecht Memorial Scholarship. Deadline is June 5th. Visit
www.kevingobrecht.com for more information on the scholarship…
Email reaches me at
Bvores@comcast.net…
The big question heading into this weekend’s
Super Sportsman tour opener at Lincoln Speedway, is who can stop
Frankie Herr?
Coming off of one of his best seasons ever, the Carlisle
veteran is ready to get back to business behind the wheel of the
family owned No. 99 machine.
It’s hard to believe that Herr’s eight wins a year ago was a
career best for a driver who has dominated the Sportsman ranks
over the past decade. Herr’s dominance a year ago also gave him
his fourth Super Sportsman championship in the last five
seasons.
“At the beginning of last year, we couldn’t win and it seemed
everything that could happen did,” Herr said. “But once we got
going, we started picking them off and ended up having the most
wins I’ve ever had in one season.”
Herr and his team have been busy preparing for the new season
and is looking forward to the competition on and off the track.
“I really enjoy building the cars along with the racing and you
get out of it what you put into it,” he added. “We’re prepared
and on top of things and ready to go racing. Hopefully we can
pick up where we left off.” Herr has always had a very
supportive group of sponsors and this year will be no different
with as Victory Lane Construction and Home Improvements,
Fastener Specialty Motorsports, Credit Connection Auto Sales,
State Farm Insurance-Denise Dombach, Dale Henry, Coating
Concepts/Custom Powder Coating, George Kinderman Automotive, Red
Crown Bowling Center, Tyson Fence and George’s Cleaners are all
on board for 2011. Ben Woodring will continue to build the
chassis while Dave Shultz supplies the power.
Herr will lead a division that has remained healthy in the car
count area despite the loss of its home base-Silver Spring
Speedway- a few years ago.
Williams Grove Speedway has stepped up to give the series a
Saturday night home and will host 18 of the 29-scheduled dates
in 2011. Other tracks on the schedule include Lincoln, Port
Royal, Susquehanna, Selinsgrove and Bedford.
There were 16 different winners in 32 races a year ago led by
Herr’s eight feature wins.
Carmen Perigo, Jr., who won the Sportsman title in 2009 had
four wins while Rich Eichelberger and Paul Miller each had three
wins. Russ Mitten and Bobby Hockenberry won twice with single
wins going to Gregg Foster, Scott Dellinger, Ryan Rupp, Jason
Fry, Lanny Hake, Rick Barr, Aaron Eichelberger, Eric Walker,
Duaine Smith and John Stehman.
The Sportsman will join the 410 Sprints and 358 Late Models
Saturday night at Lincoln Speedway with a 6pm start time.
WHATS HAPPENING
Williams Grove Speedway looks to get back into action Friday
with 410 Sprints and 358 Sprints while Trail-Way Speedway is
slated to open Friday night with 358 Sprints and 358 late
models.
Saturday action includes a regular show featuring 410 Sprints
at Port Royal with a 7pm start time, 358 Sprints at Selinsgrove,
while Hagerstown Speedway looks to open its season with a
regular show featuring late models. Trail-Way and Path Valley
will have micro sprint action over the weekend as well.
PIT STOPS
Juniata Junction Restaurant will host some race cars and
drivers this Saturday from 1-4pm at the business located at the
blinking light at Route 35 and William Penn Highway in
Mifflintown…
Jim Young (600 Micros), Levi Peck (270 Micros), Gary Dehart
(mini stocks) and Josh Walstrum (thundercars) were Friday night
winner at Path Valley Speedway while Jimmy Brookens (600
Micros), Darren Schott II (270 Micros) and Harlon Leppo (Central
PA Legends) were Saturday afternoon winners at Trail-Way
Speedway…
Email reaches me at
Bvores@comcast.net…
It’s
the start of a new era this Saturday night at Port Royal Speedway.
The new PRS Promotions team consisting of Steve O’Neal, John Krall and
Shawn Brouse will officially begin its new tenure at the Juniata County
oval with hopes of restoring some of the excitement that has been lost
over the past few seasons.
With new Juniata County Agricultural Board President Don Clark at the
helm, the new promotional team, along with a lot of volunteer help have
been busy preparing the facility for a much anticipated season opener
this weekend.
They have even canceled Bug Night, scheduled for tonight, with hopes of
preserving the race track.
“We want the track to be in the best shape we can have it for
Saturday,” said O’Neal, who heads the promotional team. “And in order to
do that, we can’t expose the track to the rainfall expected. We need to
keep it packed tight so it doesn’t take in too much water.”
While many improvements have been made around the facility, one thing
that remains the same will be the race track surface. The new team was
voted in well after preparations should have been done for a new surface
for the new season. New clay has been located for the track but finding
a time to get it laid and prepped will be the next issue for the
promotional team.
The 410 Sprints and 358 Sprints will headline this week’s season opener
which begins at 6 PM.
WHATS HAPPENING
It appears that Williams Grove Speedway will hit a home run with
weather for its Friday night season opener.
Temperatures are forecasted to be in the 70s on Friday as the Grove
opens for another season with 410 Sprints and 358 Sprints on the card
beginning at 7:30pm.
Over the past 11 seasons, the Grove holds an 87% success rate on
completing its opening night event and that rate appears to be holding
true again this year.
Lincoln Speedway will switch to nighttime racing this Saturday with a 6
PM start featuring 410 Sprints, 358 Late Models and thundercars.
Path Valley Speedway and Trail-Way Speedway both open this weekend
featuring micro sprints.
Selinsgrove Speedway will hold a 358 Modified program Friday night and
a Race of Champions Modified event Saturday afternoon.
Denise Ellis is finally at peace. Ellis, wife of long time Williams Grove Speedway track announcer and Sprint Car and Midget columnist Bruce Ellis passed away Wednesday morning. For those who knew Denise, knows she has certainly fought a vigilant battle for many years, suffering from kidney issues and more. She has been in and out of the hospital over the past few years putting up a good fight. Denise’s fragile but happy smile will certainly be missed by those that knew her. Viewing services will be Sunday night and Monday morning at the Boyle Funeral Home in Hazelton. Please keep Bruce in your thoughts and prayers at this time. Cards can reach Bruce at
Kudos to Lincoln Speedway owners for donating the track portion of the 50/50 raffle this past Saturday night to the Clouse Family of Loysville who lost seven children in a tragic house fire. And double thumbs up to the great fan base at Lincoln for showing their generosity as well with $5,000 in total sales, half going to the family. Great gesture from the racing folk in Central PA to a family who will forever be scarred…
Keith Kauffman will make his return to Port Royal Speedway this weekend with his new team owned by Gary and Linda Heckman of Chambersburg. Kauffman will pilot the Heckman Tree Farm No. 8H sprinter all season at the Port with hopes of adding some more wins to his all-time win record at the track. Kauffman will surely help add to the weekly gate attendance in 2011...
Fred Rahmer suffered a badly bruised shoulder at last Sunday’s Selinsgrove Speedway opener when he was hit by a clump of mud during his heat race. While his shoulder remains sore, no broken bones were found and Rahmer will be back on track this weekend…
Craig Dollansky got his first World of Outlaws win of the year last week at Silver Dollar Speedway in California. Dollansky beat Donny Schatz, Joey Saldana, Paul McMahan and Sammy Swindell. The Outlaws are in action this weekend at Kings Speedway and Thunderbowl Speedway…
Check out www.IJustWannaRace.com for more Central PA news
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