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GEORGE WINS NON-STOP SPRINTS FOR 5TH
WIN AT MERCER; HOLDEN WINS WILD MOD MAIN FOR 2nd TIME; PEGHER NABS #3 IN
FASTRAK; #2 FOR AMENT & LEHNERD IN MOD LITES & MINIS By Mike Leone July 4, 2009 Mercer, PA.While the weather felt more like a cool Memorial Day instead of the 4th of July, Mercer Raceway Park celebrated Independence Day on Saturday night with a huge night of racing with a 153 cars in the pit area. Scoring exciting wins and celebrating in the Hoosier Tire Mid-Atlantic victory lane were Rod George-Luxaire Heating & Cooling Sprint Cars, Jimmy Holden-Approved Toilet Rentals Modifieds, Mike Pegher, Jr.-4 Your Car Connection FASTRAK Late Models, Shaun Hooks-Stock Cars, Rick Ament-Big Daddy's Speed Center Mod Lites, Lee Lehnerd-M&D Paving Mini Stocks, and Tim Gillette-"KABOOM 100" Enduro. Rod George tracked down race-long leader Jack Sodeman, Jr. and made the winning move in a flurry of lapped cars to win the 20-lap non-stop Luxaire Heating & Cooling Sprint Car feature for the fifth time this season in on a wicked, fast track. It was the second straight week the feature went flag-to-flag without a caution, this time timed in 5:08.18 minutes. "I'm a tired puppy after that one," said the Kittanning, Pa. point leader. "The track was rough in the heats, but those guys worked their magic as usual in the feature. It was a little rough up on the curb, but the bottom was smooth. I was kind of all over the place. It was a super fast track and hats off to all the racers on another non-stop race! When it comes to traffic, running second is a lot of times better than in the lead." Jack Sodeman, Jr. flew to the early lead past pole-sitter Carl Bowser. With super fast cars up front, it didn't take long for the leaders to encounter lapped traffic as by lap four Sodeman caught the back of the pack. George advanced to third on lap five taking the third position from Danny Holtgraver. George then worked his way past Bowser for runner-up on lap nine. By the time George made it to second, he trailed Sodeman by a straightaway. Sodeman though encountered heavy traffic on lap 12 allowing George to cut the deficit in half. Then on lap 13, George was right on Sodeman's tail tank and made the daring move in a gaggle of lapped cars for the lead. Australian Steven Lines had made his way from seventh into fourth, but exited the event on lap 16 in his first ever Mercer start. Meanwhile up front, George had the field covered as he raced on to his 23rd career win, which have all come in the past seven years in his Dr. John Crawford III/Pro Shot Directional Boring/Suzanne Stivason/Max Weiss-sponsored #4. Sodeman, who just can't seem to get the monkey off his back at Mercer, turned in his best performance since April 24, 2004 matching his career best Mercer effort. Bowser had a strong run in third for his season's best finish. Arnie Kent made another charge forward to finish fourth after starting 11th and crossed the line ahead of Holtgraver. Completing the top 10 were Australian Matt Reed in his first ever appearance, Gale Ruth, Jr., Craig Folmar, Chris Best, and Johnny Beaber. Heat winners were Reed, Lines, and Holtgraver over the 21-car field. Jimmy Holden won one of the most exciting Modified feature in some time winning a thriller from the seventh position for his second victory of the season in the 20-lap Approved Toilet Rentals feature that had six drivers contending for the win. "Phew," said the exhausted Tiona, Pa. youngster. "A couple different things happened in that race. I made a couple passes that got neglegated because of cautions and I thought that was it. But man getting third position was a big deal. It gave me a great chance on that restart and we seized the opportunity. It was great to see Lonny Riggs running strong. I just got one good launch off the bottom. There was a distinct bottom groove and a top groove and it was pretty good no matter where you were at." Rick Hall jumped out to the lead with Dave Cogswell, Riggs, John Buchanan, and Frank Guidace in tow. Riggs took over runner-up from Cogswell on lap two. Following a caution with two laps completed, Riggs took charge of the event, while Buchanan and Guidace moved to third and fourth past Cogswell. A whale of a battle took place for second with Hall trying to fend off Buchanan, Guidace, Holden, and Gabany. Buchanan, who was swapping third back and forth with Guidace, found the outside to his liking taking over second from Hall on lap eight. Guidace and Holden continued their way forward grabbing third and fourth respectively from Hall on lap nine. Buchanan had a solid run going, but Guidace and Gabany were able to slip under for second and third on lap 13, while Holden entered the picture taking fourth on lap 14. The key move though came on lap 16 when Holden got by Gabany for third on lap 16 before the event's final caution with 17 in the books. On the ensuing restart, Holden shot under Guidace for second then drove under Riggs, who slipped high in turn four, to lead lap 18. That was all she wrote as Holden nailed down his fourth career win in exciting fashion in the Dean Holden-owned, Holden Precision Machine/Holden Oil & Gas/Jet Water Hauling/DAH Oil-sponsored #28H. Riggs made his return after a month out of action due to motor woes to record a season best second. Guidace continues to knock on the door, but still can't find victory lane as he came home third to maintain his point lead. Gabany was fourth after starting 10th. Buchanan dropped to fifth for his second straight top five. Completing the top 10 were Hall, Matt Reeher, Cogswell, Mark Bailey, and Dustin Martin. Heat victors were Gabany and Riggs over the season-high 16-car field. Mike Pegher, Jr. came out on top of a wild 20-lap 4 Your Car Connection FASTRAK Late Model feature over his nemesis Max Blair for his third win of the season. "It was my kind of track tonight," expressed the Wexford, Pa. racer. "It was really good for the feature. We were racing with David Scott and had a good race going there. We've had a rough few weeks and this will sure help out a lot." Tenth starting David Scott flew through some hellish early laps with cars all over the place to race into second after the completion of two laps. Scott then overtook Mike Anderson, Jr. for the lead on lap four. Anderson's strong run ended when he spun on lap six moving Bud Watson to runner-up and eighth starting Pegher to third. On lap seven, Pegher drove under Watson to take over runner-up and immediately caught Scott. Scott and Pegher put on a great show running side-by-side on laps 8-11 before Pegher made the winning move with a slider in turn four to lead the 11th circuit. Blair, who started 11th and actually had to go to the back after an early race skirmish, worked his way back through the field. He caught up to Scott and they raced side-by-side on laps 16 and 17 with Blair overtaking the veteran Super Late Model star on lap 17. Pegher though was too much for Blair to overcome as he drove the Lynn Geisler-owned, Cochran Automotive/Triple- Shaun Hooks won the special open invitational for the Stock Cars in the 15-lap $400 to-win feature. "It felt really good," expressed the New Castle, Pa. driver. "I'd like to thank Clyde and T.J. for building the car, Robinsons for building the body and everybody else." Hooks led from green-to-checkered in the Richard Janovick-owned #65 and the only thing that slowed his run to the checkered was a pair of early race cautions. The victory was Hooks' 13th of his career, but first since September 10, 2005 at Mercer. Terry Wheeler started sixth and moved to second past Mark Sanders on lap three. Wheeler was within striking distance of Hooks the entire way, but had to settle for second- his best finish since July 14, 2007. Sanders' third was his best at Mercer since August 12, 2006. Jim Brunson was fourth for his first top five since 2002 and Matt Rubright was fifth. Hooks won the heat race. In just his fifth start of the season, Rick Ament captured his second 15-lap Big Daddy's Speed Center Mod Lite feature win. The Apollo, Pa. driver started from the eighth spot and quickly raced to the front as he was in third after one lap. The battle was for the lead on lap three as Mylan Markovich, Jr. and Ament were trying to overtake leader Bill Stivason. Markovich went to the outside and got high on the backstretch flipping his car. He was okay. When racing resumed, Ament and 10th starting Terry Young got around Stivason for the top two spots. The last 13 laps went green-to-checkered with Ament taking the win in his Baustert Landscaping- Rookie Lee Lehnerd passed point leader and five-time winner Jamey Lee on the final turn of the final lap to win his second 12-lap M&D Paving Mini Stock feature. "I'm still trying to catch my breathe," said the 18-year-old recent Knoch High School graduate. "I was running hard the whole race." Lehnerd started fourth and took the lead on lap two from Wally Stearns, Jr. Lee, who started 11th, passed both Mike McConnell and Stearns for second on lap four. After a caution with four laps completed, Lee took charge of the event. The last eight laps would go non-stop. Lehnerd slowly closed in on Lee in the final laps. He was right on his bumper entering turns one and two and followed him down the backstretch. Lehnerd shot to the bottom of turn three and came out in the lead off turn four in his #71 stealing the win from Lee. Last week's first career winner, Tim Callahan, came from 12th to finish third. Callahan also finished a close runner-up on Tuesday night in his first ever appearance at Expo Speedway. Dan McEwen was fourth for the fifth time this season, his sixth straight top five, and eighth of the season. Josh Verrill was fifth. Pete Blazczak, Lee, and Doug Fairfield won the heats over the 23-car field. The night concluded with "KABOOM 100" Enduro and it was a familiar face in victory lane as Tim Gillette made it three in a row in Enduro competition scoring the $1,000 victory. "It's a nice race- it's fun," said the happy 37-year-old Linesville, Pa. driver. "Just get a junk car, put a cage in it, and start driving. It felt good. Parts of this car were from the car I won the last two Enduros with. It was pretty hairy out there. I want to thank Mercer Raceway Park, everyone that helped me, and my wife for her understanding. Gillette led the first 10 laps from the pole before Dean Schreffler took over. His lead lasted until the 19th lap when Gillette regained the lead. Other leaders throughout the course of the event included Kevin Thompson, Jr., Dakota Papsun, and Brent Lee. Lee actually had nearly a full lead on Gillette, but Gillette chewed into the deficit and took the lead back for good on lap 86 with a move on the outside in turn two. Gillette then raced on through traffic to score the win in his 1990 Toyota Celica, Gillette Import Autowerks-sponsored #1. Brent Lee of Fairmount City, Pa. earned $500 for finishing second after starting 47th. Justin Meyers of Lower Burrell, Pa. came home third after lining up 51st for $400. Stock Car driver Stacy Neubecker of Boardman, Ohio, who finished fifth at the "Jack Frost 150" on January 3, recorded his second straight top five in fourth, which was worth $300. Joe Philip of Conneaut, Ohio was fifth and collected $200. The race took 46 minutes and 23 seconds to complete despite two red flags; one for a blocked track on the backstretch and the other for John Larkin, whose car went up in a ball of fire. Fifty-four cars were scheduled to compete with 51 of them taking the green flag and 16 of them finishing the race. Luxaire Heating & Cooling Sprint Cars (20 laps): 1. ROD GEORGE (4) 2. Jack Sodeman, Jr. (23Jr) 3. Carl Bowser (10) 4. Arnie Kent (18) 5. Danny Holtgraver (D4) 6. Matt Reed (Fitzpatrick 92V) 7. Gale Ruth, Jr. (5x) 8. Craig Folmar (81) 9. Chris Best (66) 10. Johnny Beaber (Taylor 7B) 11. Chris Shuttleworth (11) 12. Lindsay Enscoe (96) 13. Gale Ruth, Sr. (1R) 14. Brent Matus (33) 15. Jack Helget (Taylor 71c) 16. Jeff Taylor (17T) 17. Steven Lines (Challons 45) 18. Brandon Matus (3J) 19. Russ Sansosti (23s) 20. Butch Beasley (1) 21. Tony Beaber (3T). Approved Toilet Rentals 358 Modifieds (20 laps): 1. JIMMY HOLDEN (28H) 2. Lonny Riggs (Black 58) 3. Frank Guidace (1G) 4. Eric Gabany (3E) 5. John Buchanan (93) 6. Rick Hall (B2) 7. Matt Reeher (711) 8. Dave Cogswell (8) 9. Mark Bailey (14B) 10. Dustin Martin (29D) 11. Tom Holden (15H) 12. Jr. Baker (359) 13. Wayne Bice (66) 14. Rick Kress (222) 15. Garrett Krummert (29)-DNS 16. Chris Myers (c1)-DNS.
4 Your Car Connection FASTRAK Late Models (20 laps): 1. MIKE PEGHER, JR. (Geisler 1c) 2. Max Blair (111) 3. David Scott (Powell 100) 4. Bud Watson (2) 5. Shane Bambarger (68B) 6. Gary Miller, Jr. (1m) 7. Mike Anderson, Jr. (72) 8. Steve Hollabaugh (3H) 9. Ben Black (27B) 10. Jamie Brown (135) 11. Bill Thomas (22) 12. Tyler Barris (32B) 13. Michael Mitchell (19) 14. Tyler Dietz (D10) 15. Rusty Cade (47)-DNS. Stock Cars (15 laps, $400 to-win): 1.
SHAUN HOOKS (Janovick 65) 2. Terry Wheeler (2W) 3. Mark Sanders (32) 4.
Jim Brunson (1-17) 5. Matt Rubright (35) 6. Justin Kreider (9K) 7. Jim
Keith (43K) 8. Bobby Robinson (54R) 9. Andy Buckley (965). |
