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Wolfe, Dietrich Score Speedweek Wins at Port Royal

 

BY DREW PELLMAN

PORT ROYAL — Each summer, fans of open-wheel racing in the midstate can mark the halfway point of the season with the arrival of Pennsylvania Sprint Car Speedweek. The long, exciting — and yes, quite exhausting — summertime tradition features 10 consecutive nights of racing at six different local race tracks. This year, Port Royal Speedway hosted two Speedweek programs — round six on July 4th and round nine on July 7th.

As the gates were opening to start the Independence Day celebration, so too did the storm clouds overhead. With no more rain in the forecast, however, PRS Promotions made the spectators quite happy with their decision to race on. Even with a delayed start to the event in a very busy week of racing, 35 410 sprinters signed in for competition on an extremely fast racing surface due to the extra moisture from Mother Nature.

Qualifying time trials, four heat races, a B-main and a redraw were used to set the starting lineup during each Speedweek event. To ensure a spot in the redraw, drivers had to either win their heat race outright, or be one of the four fastest time trialers to finish in a transfer spot (top five) of their heat. All that put two of the best Pennsylvania has to offer on the front row of the feature event — Danny Dietrich and Greg Hodnett.

After the initial start was wiped out by a slowing Aaron Reutzel, it was Dietrich who jumped out to an early lead on a surface that was still super fast. The action was halted on the sixth lap when Gerard McIntyre Jr. took a tumble between turns three and four. Though McIntyre was okay, his night was certainly over. On the ensuing restart, Hodnett stayed well within striking distance, with Lucas Wolfe, Trey Starks and Lance Dewease still lurking in the distance. Hodnett finally made his move on lap 16, sailing to the outside of Dietrich in turn four to take the race lead. Unfortunately for the veteran racer, his nose wing collapsed just two circuits later, ending his night and handing the lead right back to the red and white No. 48 machine. That too wouldn’t last long as Wolfe used the exact same move as Hodnett executed to drive past Dietrich for the lead just two laps later. Wolfe went unchallenged from there, opening up a margin of victory that was nearly the length of a straightaway. Dietrich held onto second and Starks came home third to round out the podium, while invaders Spencer Bayston and Tony Stewart finished a respectable fourth and fifth. Sixth through tenth went to Blane Heimbach, Lance Dewease — who faltered late due to a nose wing issue of his own — James McFadden, Freddie Rahmer and Jared Esh. Heat race winners were Bayston, Wolfe, Dietrich and Stewart. Esh won the B-main. Hodnett earned quick time honors on the night with a lap of 15.352 seconds.

Steve Buckwalter Jr. — driving Ed Aiken’s No. 7 — won the feature in the 360 division after an intense battle with Chad Layton and Curt Michael.

Moving on to Saturday night, it was clear from the start that the race teams would face drastically different conditions than what they dealt with a few days earlier. With much warmer temperatures and little to no rain since Wednesday, the racing surface was back to what the drivers are more used to on a weekly basis — a wide track that will clean off, which produces slower speeds and allow for some intense battles from the inside guardrail all the way up to the outside cushion. The same qualifying format as Wednesday put defending Port Royal champion Brock Zearfoss and Anthony Macri on the front row, and it was the Zearfoss No. 3Z that took the advantage at the start. What followed can only be described as organized chaos. Cars were running high, low and through the middle, executing slidejob after slidejob to do everything they could to take a stab at the lead. Sixth-starting Danny Dietrich made it happen first, as he passed Zearfoss for the top spot on the backstretch with just six laps to go. Little did he know at the time, but that lead would last only until he reached turn three as Lance Dewease got a great run on the bottom of the speedway to pass both the 3Z and 48 machines and go third to first in the same corner. Dietrich didn’t back down, and found a run of his own off the top side of the second turn to return the favor just two laps later. He never looked back in the 30-lap, nonstop feature event to earn his third Speedweek victory of the week (the first two both coming at Lincoln). Zearfoss also battled back to regain second from Dewease, who was forced to settle for third. The remainder of the top ten was Greg Hodnett, Ryan Smith, Freddie Rahmer, Anthony Macri, Rico Abreu, Ryan Taylor and Lucas Wolfe. Heat races for the 31 410s in the pits were won by Dietrich, Dewease, Taylor and Macri. For the second time in as many races, Esh won the B-main. Wolfe started off the night with a fast lap of 16.814 seconds in time trials.

Ralph Morgan Jr. completed Saturday night at Port Royal Speedway with an exciting victory in the super late model division over Marvin Winters and Andy Haus.

2018 PA Speedweek Winners
Friday, June 29 — Williams Grove — Trey Starks
Saturday, June 30 — Lincoln — Danny Dietrich
Sunday, July 1 — Path Valley — Cole Duncan
Monday, July 2 — Lincoln — Danny Dietrich
Tuesday, July 3 — Grandview — Kyle Larson
Wednesday, July 4 — Port Royal — Lucas Wolfe
Thursday, July 5 — Hagerstown — Lance Dewease
Friday, July 6 — Williams Grove — Lance Dewease
Saturday, July 7 — Port Royal — Danny Dietrich
Sunday, July 8 — Selinsgrove — Lucas Wolfe

Final Speedweek Standings — Top 10
1. Greg Hodnett — 1,234 points
2. Danny Dietrich — 1,232
3. Lucas Wolfe — 1,202
4. Freddie Rahmer — 1,172
5. Ryan Smith — 1,055
6. Trey Starks — 943
7. Rico Abreu — 937
8. Lance Dewease — 812
9. Anthony Macri — 797
10. Brock Zearfoss — 785

This Week
With Speedweek 2018 now officially in the rearview mirror, we turn our attention to the second half of the racing season. The 410 sprints, super late models 355 econo late models and xtreme stocks will be back in action at the Juniata County oval on Saturday night at 7 p.m.

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