Decision Pays Off For Dietrich in Port Royal Triumph

By rscaife
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Updated: May 9, 2018

By DREW PELLMAN

PORT ROYAL — Gary Kauffman, owner of the No. 48 sprint car piloted by Danny Dietrich, said that he and his team made a weather-based decision to head north to Port Royal Speedway at about 4 o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Their original plan was to attend Lincoln Speedway’s running of the Weldon Sterner Memorial — an annual event that pays $6,900 to win. With the forecast a bit more favorable at Port Royal, his team — and at least four others — left a potential big payday on the table for a better chance to race. It worked, as Lincoln was forced to throw in the towel before racing was able to get started.

That isn’t to say Port Royal didn’t have its difficulties. The track — which moved up its starting time from 7 p.m. to 6 p.m. in an attempt to beat the rain — was hit with the first batch of showers as the 410 sprints were pushing to the speedway for their feature event. Then, after successfully completing that event and the super late model feature that followed, the rain returned with six laps down and 12 to go in the 305 feature. That event will be finished when the 305s return to Port Royal on June 30th. Zach Newlin will be the race leader at the time of resumption. The 355 econo late models also lost their feature event to rain, which results in a two-feature night this coming Saturday.

After Port Royal’s track crew had once again got the clay in racing condition, the 410s returned to the track for their delayed 25-lap feature. T.J. Stutts and Dietrich were handicapped to the front row following heat racing, and it was Dietrich who checked out after two laps of back-and-forth action. Behind the No. 48, the jousting was just beginning between Stutts, Logan Wagner, Mike Wagner, Greg Hodnett and Lucas Wolfe. At times, those five cars were working both the bottom and top of the same turn at the same time. Dietrich was never challenged as the race went nonstop en route to his fourth career win at the Juniata County half-mile (and first under the lights.) He crossed the stripe just over 3.2 seconds ahead of Stutts’ No. 11. The Wagner’s simply picked up a tough battle that began in their heat. Each time, it ended up with son Logan getting the better of father Mike — this time for third and fourth in the feature. Hodnett, the current point leader settled for fifth ahead of Wolfe, Brock Zearfoss, Freddie Rahmer, Steve Buckwalter and James McFadden. Heats for the 22 410 sprints were won by Stutts, Wolfe and Zearfoss.

The super late models went nonstop as well, with Dylan Yoder picking up his second win of 2018 at Port Royal. It was his 14th career victory at the Speed Palace. Tim Smith Jr. beat Trent Brenneman off the front row and held the lead for the first 10 laps before fourth-starting Yoder tracked him down using the middle of the racing surface for the race-winning pass. He was by more than 2.3 seconds over Smith at the finish, who held on to second ahead of Mike Lupfer, Jeff Rine and Brenneman. Dan Stone, Brett Schadel, Jerry Bard, Dave Brouse Jr. and Gene Knaub rounded out the top 10. A pair of heats for the 20 cars in attendance went to Stone and Brenneman.

THIS WEEK
The 410s, super late models and 355 econo late models return to action, and are joined by the xtreme stocks for their third race of the 2018 season.

OTHER AREA SPRINT CAR WINNERS:
Friday — Williams Grove Speedway — 410s: Aaron Ott, ASCS (360s): Greg Hodnett
Friday — Trail-Way Speedway — 358s: Austen Treuchet
Saturday — Lincoln Speedway — 410s and 358s: Rained Out
Saturday — Selinsgrove Speedway — ASCS (360s): Blane Heimbach
Sunday — BAPS Motor Speedway — 410s and 358s: Rained Out