This message was edited on
April 30, 2011 at
05:52:20 AM by Smitty51
Steve Buckwalter completed a clean sweep of the racing action at Williams Grove Speedway on Friday night.
Buckwalter scored a convincing victory in the All Star Circuit of Champions sprint-car feature and then he won the ARDC Midget feature.
For Buckwalter, the $5,000 win was his first against the All Stars and his second overall this season in central Pennsylvania. He’s won both midget features held so far.
“I ran hard the first couple of laps and got out in the lead, Buckwalter said. “I figured if I stayed up top, I could look out the left side of my car and see when they started getting close. As soon as they got close, I dropped down and I guess it was the right move.”
Several drivers were closing on Buckwalter by running the inside of the speedway, but he changed his line just in time.
“It’s so hard when you start out front, you run around the top all night and that’s naturally where you want to go, you hope you get down before they get ahead of you,” Buckwalter said. “If they get in front of you and then you get down, it’s too late.”
Buckwalter, of Royersford, started on the pole and grabbed the lead at the drop of the green flag over Curt Michael and Brian Leppo.
Brian Montieth drove by Rick Lafferty to take fourth on the fifth lap and then went after third place Leppo. They traded the spot in turn three, but Leppo regained the spot off turn four.
Alan Krimes was on the move from his ninth starting spot as he drove by Dale Blaney and Stevie Smith to take sixth. Meanwhile, Leppo, Lafferty and Montieth were racing three-wide for third. Lafferty got the spot as Krimes drove by Montieth and then by Leppo to take fourth on lap 13.
Lafferty drove by Michael and into the runner-up spot on lap 16. Michael drove back by Lafferty and Krimes moved into the picture.
Buckwalter, the 2010 ARDC Midget champion, began to pull away from Michael and an intense battle for third. Lafferty drove by Michael again in lapped traffic. Krimes took third from Michael with eight laps to go.
Lafferty began to close on the leader with five laps to go with Krimes a close third. The leaders had no lapped cars between them with four circuits left.
Buckwalter held off Lafferty by a few car lengths to score his second career Williams Grove victory over Lafferty, Krimes, Michael and Stevie Smith. Fred Rahmer, Greg Hodnett, Montieth, Leppo and Lance Dewease completed the top 10. The highest finishing All Star regular was Dale Blaney in 11th.
Buckwalter and his team stopped asking others for help.
“We’re going to stop asking people questions and do what we think the car needs,” Buckwalter said. “We get it to feel right for me. Clair and Jan Ritter, I can’t say enough about them, we don’t have a ton of equipment or a bunch of money, but somehow he comes up with the money to do it. Ever since we switched to this Maxim Chassis, we’ve been super fast. We wrecked on Saturday at Lincoln and we built this car on Tuesday.”
The 30-lap feature went non-stop. The All Stars have never beaten the Williams Grove regulars in a sanctioned race.
Rahmer set fast time over the 41-car field with a lap of 16.877. Montieth, Michael, Buckwalter, Hodnett and Blaney were in the top six in qualifying.
The eight-lap heat races were won by Dewease, Jessica Zemken, Daryn Pittman and David Gravel.
I believe the finish was as follows:
1. Buckwalter (1), 2. Lafferty (4), 3. Krimes (9), 4. Michael (2), 5. S. Smith (10), 6. Rahmer (11), 7. Montieth (6), 8. Hodnett (12), 9. Leppo (3), 10. Dewease (19), 11. Blaney (5), 12. Kreitz (23), 13. Layton (24), 14. Tim Shaffer (16), 15. Dietrich (17), 16. Walker (18), 17. Pittman (7), 18. Esh (14), 19. Todd Shaffer (8), 20. Henderson (15), 21. Wilt (13), 22. Zemken (20), 23. Madsen (21), 24. Gravel (22).
It was an excellent night of racing at the Grove and I too am surprised more folks don't show up for these shows. I'm guessing the weather may have had a lot to do with the crowd as well, it was quite breezy & cool.
I will attempt to provide timely & accurate results from Port tonight.
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