Hometown Sports
Don't Miss

Mike Wagner, Anthony Macri Earn Weekend Wins at Port Royal

By DREW PELLMAN
PORT ROYAL — For the first time in more than three months, things finally seemed normal again Saturday night at the Juniata County Fairgrounds. Locals packed the Port Royal Speedway in a fantastic showing of support, and were treated with a very popular result at the end of the night. Harrisonville’s Mike Wagner — a veteran that last celebrated a win at Port Royal in 2014 — brought the fans to their feet, becoming the first driver to celebrate in the brand new victory lane that was completed during the long, unexpected break in the scheduled racing season. It was his 12th career Port Royal victory.
And for his familiar black No. 55, despite getting the coveted front-row starting spot by luck of the re-draw pill, the biggest break of the night actually came at the expense of his son — and two-time defending track champion, Logan Wagner — when the younger Wagner encountered a flat tire in the Zemco No. 1 while running second with nine laps in the books. From there, T.J. Stutts threw everything but the kitchen sink at him for the remaining 16 laps, but Mike Wagner stayed loyal to the top of the speedway the whole event. Stutts managed to get under Wagner at times — but multiple slidejob attempts came up just short for the Liverpool driver in his No. 11 that features a new-for-2020 black and white look. Jeff Halligan — who has moved up from the 358 ranks for 2020 — has been impressive to say the least in his 410 sprint car, and was able to track down Stutts for the runner-up spot on the final lap. After the top three came 16th-starting Lance Dewease, and the first Port Royal top five for young New York pilot Paulie Colagiovanni. Robbie Kendall, Ryan Taylor, Jared Esh, Dylan Cisney and Logan Wagner — who rebounded nicely from his earlier misfortune — rounded out the top 10. Heat races for the 41 410s in attendance — which had lineups set by a pill draw — went to Kendall, Taylor, Jeff Miller and Halligan. Kyle Reinhardt won the B-main.
In super late model action Saturday night, Gregg Satterlee drove from his fourth-starting position to the victory over a very strong 32-car field. Rick Eckert finished second, Trevor Feathers was third, Jason Covert crossed fourth and Marvin Winters settled for fifth. Heats were won by Kyle Lee, Eckert, Bryan Bernheisel and Feathers.
Andrew Yoder, a winner at Selinsgrove on Friday night, picked up where he left off to take the limited late model race over Dillan Stake, Ryan Zook, Devin Hart and Todd Snook. Yoder, Snook and Hart also won heat races. There were 21 limited late models pitside.
The following night, the Juniata County oval came back to life with another compelling story from 410 sprint car victory lane. While Wagner was winning the Saturday night feature event, Anthony Macri was competing with the World of Outlaws in Knoxville, Iowa. Nearly 24 hours later, he was celebrating his first triumph of the season at Port Royal — the second of his career — after his team drive through the night in order to make it to Juniata County after finishing 15th at Knoxville.
On this night, everything seemingly went right for the Dillsburg driver and his No. 39M team. It started early on as Macri put down the fastest lap in time trials, setting himself up very nicely for the rest of the racing program. The Pennsylvania Speedweek format was being used Sunday night by the 33 410s in the pits, which inverted Macri to the fourth-starting position in his heat race. Under that format, Macri knew — based on his time trial effort — that he only needed to be in the top five in the heat race to enter the redraw for the feature. He did that and more, driving up to second in the heat, before drawing the outside of the front row for the feature event.
Macri got the jump on polesitter A.J. Flick and went on to lead all 25 laps, but it certainly wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Logan Wagner was the top challenger with Lance Dewease coming strong as well. As the trio maneuvered in and out of lapped traffic and the action was getting to its most exciting point, a slowing Tyler Walton forced the caution flag to be unfurled on lap 13 — the only time the race was slowed.
On the ensuing restart, Logan Wagner made his first real attempt at the race lead. Wagner was able to draw even on the bottom of the track, but Macri’s momentum on the cushion gave him the advantage down the backstretch. A couple laps later, Wagner dove hard to the bottom entering turn one and managed to slide up in front of Macri to momentarily capture the lead as the duo exited the second turn. Macri though was able to cross Wagner over down the backstretch and take the top spot back through turns three and four. Ultimately, that proved to be the winning move. Wagner was forced to settle for second, but showed a lot of speed in both races over the weekend. Brent Marks — who also competed at Knoxville the night before — passed Dewease for third late in the event, and Mike Wagner crossed fifth. Ryan Smith finished sixth, Flick fell to seventh, Freddie Rahmer — who was looking for his third win of the weekend after picking up victories at Selinsgrove Friday and Lincoln Saturday — was eighth, Stutts took ninth and Dylan Cisney rounded out the top 10. Sunday’s heat races were won by Dewease, Flick, Mike Wagner and Taylor. Cale Thomas won the B-main.
Garrett Bard continued his hot start to the year in 305 sprint car action, beating Dylan Proctor, Doug Dodson, Christian Rumsey and Jared Zionkowski to the line in the divisions first race of the year at Port Royal. Sixth through tenth went to Roger Irvine, Ken Duke Jr., Landon Price, Erin Statler and Derek Hauck.

Up Next
Port Royal returns to action on Saturday with its first Open Wheel Madness program of the season. Both the 410s and 305s are back, and they’ll be joined by the 358 sprint cars to complete the ultimate racing program for fans of open-wheel racing.

Other Area Sprint Car Winners Since Racing Resumed
Roaring Knob Motorsports Complex: Sunday, May 24 — Sye Lynch (410 sprints), Garrett Bard (305 sprints)

Lincoln Speedway: Monday, May 25 — Brian Montieth (410 sprints); Saturday, May 30th — Chad Trout (410 sprints), Todd Rittenhouse Jr. (358 sprints); Saturday, June 6th — Dylan Cisney (410 sprints), Todd Rittenhouse Jr. (358 sprints); Saturday, June 13th — Freddie Rahmer (410 sprints), Scott Fisher (358 sprints).

Selinsgrove Speedway: Saturday, May 30 — Christian Rumsey (305 sprints); Sunday, May 31 — Kyle Reinhardt (410 sprints); Saturday, June 6 — Blane Heimbach (360 sprints), Garrett Bard (305 sprints); Friday, June 12 — Freddie Rahmer (410 sprints).

BAPS Motor Speedway: Sunday, June 7 — Lance Dewease (410 sprints); Thursday, June 11 — Doug Hammaker (358 sprints).

Trail-Way Speedway: Saturday, June 13 — Steve Owings (358 sprints)

Path Valley Speedway: Saturday, June 13 — John Scarborough (305 sprints)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.