By Kasey Kreider
The final night of the 2021 racing season at the Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway was a busy one to say the least. The four weekly divisions of racing would compete in their final races of the 2021 season, with the 270s “playing two,” as they would make up their rained-out points finale to begin the night. Plus, the Stage 1 Modifieds would make their debut at the Clyde, setting the groundwork to potentially be back on more occasions in the future. The season’s awards would also be presented to the top 15 points finishers in each division, with special awards also being presented to the rookie of the year, sportsman of the year, most improved driver, and the best appearing car in each class. On top of all that, the kids in attendance got to have fun at the Clyde one final time in 2021, as they trick-or-treated through the pit area during intermission on the Halloween/Trick or Treat Night.
But on a crisp and cool evening eerily similar to the one that began the season all the way back in the beginning of April, familiar faces would get to take one final journey to victory lane before the long winter. T. J. Greve started the night by winning the makeup 270 feature in dominant fashion, closing the points-paying season with his third 270 win. Nick Skias took his fourth victory of the year in Hyper Racing 600s, capping off his first year driving for Groff Motorsports in style. Speaking of four, Matt Fernsler would take his class-leading fourth victory of the season in the 125/4 Stroke finale, one day after celebrating his 21st birthday. The Stage 1 Modifieds would compete in their first ever 20-lap feature at the speedway, and a familiar face in Mike Glass would charge to take home the checkered flag. Jason Swavely would duel with Nick Skias one final time in 2021, and this time Swavely would come out on top in the second and final 270 feature of the evening. And newly-crowned champion Bret Cronrath would end the Skeet Craft Collision Sportsman season with his seventh victory of the year, and his third in a row to end out the campaign.
The points finale for the 270s would take to the racetrack first, and T. J. Greve would start alongside of Dave Williams on the front row. While battles for other of the top positions in points would carry on throughout the race, the championship had already been mathematically clinched for Nick Skias, and he would roll off in the makeup from tenth.
Greve would lead the race’s early laps, and appeared to be unchallenged early on, rolling the bottom with far more efficiency than anyone else in the field as that would be the predominant groove early on in the evening. However, Nick Skias and Jason Swavely, as they had all season, would work to find their way to the front, with Swavely making up ground from his sixth starting position. Skias would leapfrog Swavely in his charge to the front, and he would move past Randy West and into the runner-up spot following a restart on lap 12. As Swavely tinkered with the high side, Greve, Skias, and West would all hug the infield tires as the front three before Swavely got past West in the late laps.
But despite a few restarts, the last of which coming with ten laps to go, the result of the race would never be in doubt. The Hartly, DE native would pull away to an advantage of more than a straightaway, and would take the checkers first for his third win of the season, 3.398 seconds in front of Skias. He would also set the race’s fastest lap of 10.956 seconds. Swavely would come home third to complete the podium, while West and Tyler Ulrich would round out the top five.
T. J. Greve started on the pole and dominated to win the final points-paying 270 feature of the season. (Photo Courtesy of Keegan Simmons/Mike Knappenberger Photos)
The regularly scheduled slate of events would begin with the final 25-lapper of the season in the Hyper Racing 600s. With the top half or so of the field redrawing for starting positions in all five classes, the redraw for the 600s would be among the top eight starters. Shjon Dove, who had won one of the heats, would draw the pole, with Jesse Maurer starting alongside. Aaron Espenshade picked up the other heat race win and would start fourth, while Bradley Brown, who set the quick time in warmups, would start eighth.
It would be Dove leading the first few laps of the race, with Maurer right on his tail and Skias staying within striking distance in third. A spin for Espenshade would set up a restart on lap 4, and that’s where Skias would make his move. As Dove and Maurer battled for the top spot off of turn 2, Skias would shoot under both drivers off the exit of the corner, and the lead would be his despite Dove’s attempts to counter, with Maurer then quickly moving to second. From there, it would be a battle amongst teammates for the victory. Skias would run the bottom groove through the corners, with Maurer running on the high side. Little by little, Maurer would seem to close in, and he looked poised to challenge Skias for the lead as the race approached ten laps to go. However, around that point is when Skias changed up his line, going up to the top, and forcing Maurer to try something different to close in and get around. The drivers would flip flop lines for a few laps, with Skias now running the fence and Maurer running on the bottom. Once the Wernersville, PA driver found the top, he would begin to pull away, and set his sights on his fourth Hyper Racing 600 win of the season.
Nick Skias (No. 7) passed both Jesse Maurer (No. 3) and Shjon Dove (No. 3d) on a lap 4 restart to take over the lead of the Hyper Racing 600 feature. (Photo Courtesy of Brandon Worthington/Mike Knappenberger Photos)
Skias would cross the checkered flag 1.267 seconds ahead of Maurer, making it a one-two for the teammates. Maurer would be the one turning the race’s fastest lap of 11.051 seconds, but would have to settle for a runner-up result. Holden Eckman would bring home an emotional third-place finish, as Brown and Brent Ely would complete the top five.
Nick Skias held off a challenge from Groff Motorsports teammate Jesse Maurer to take his fourth Hyper Racing 600 victory of the 2021 season. (Photo Courtesy of Brandon Worthington/Mike Knappenberger Photos)
As Holden Eckman would pace the 125/4 Stroke field in honor of his late brother, Matt Fernsler and John Maurer would line up on the front row for the start. Justin Harrington and Toby Blumenshine won the heat races and would start fourth and eighth, respectively, while Dylan Holmes was fastest in warmups and would start 13th.
Fernsler, who was also in search of his fourth win of the season, would pull away to the lead, with Mike Miller moving into the runner-up spot and Harrington moving to third. However, the biggest mover in the early laps would be Bradley Brown, who started in 19th following an issue before the green flag. Brown would climb up to the seventh position by lap 8, and then on a restart, would blast his way up to third, battling hard with Harrington, Maurer, Chirs Dolan, and Alex Lukacs behind the front two.
Still, it looked to be Fernsler’s race to lose, as he would hold a steady four-to-five car length advantage over Miller. A caution with six laps to go for Maurer’s stopped vehicle would set up a frantic dash to the finish, and the young driver in a breakout season would have to hold off the multi-time track champion to get the win. Fernsler would get a bit of a break though, as Lukacs’ spin on the restart would make it single-file the rest of the way. Miller would try to challenge before Fernsler pulled away, but to no avail.
Fernsler would take the win by 1.034 seconds, setting the fastest lap of the race in the process at 11.957 seconds. Miller would have to settle for second, while Brown’s impressive rally netted him a third-place result. Harrington and Dolan would complete the top five.
Matt Fernsler led all 25 laps of the 125/4 Stroke feature to pick up his fourth win of the season. (Photo Courtesy of Brandon Worthington/Mike Knappenberger Photos)
The inaugural Stage 1 Modified feature would roll off next, with heat race winner Lawson Szaerencits starting from the pole. Former Lanco regular A. J. Gerhart was fastest in warmups and also won a heat, and he would start alongside on the front row. The other heat race win went to Gavyn Krupp, and he would go off from the sixth starting spot.
Szaerencits would lead through the early stages of the 20-lap main event, but it would be another former Lanco veteran working his way toward the front to challenge, as Mike Glass, who started eighth, would drive all the way up to second on the race’s first long green flag run. On lap 10, Matt Mertz would go for a wild ride, flipping his No. 16 in turn 3 and putting the race under the red flag. Mertz would be okay, but it would take a few minutes to get his car cleared from the track and make slight repairs to the catchfence.
The caution allowed Glass to start from the outside of the front row for the restart, and after a little bit of rubbing in turns 1 and 2, Glass would clear Szaerencits and put his No. 6 into the lead. From there Glass would begin to check out, and even as Krupp charged up into the second spot, he wouldn’t have any opportunity to try and close back in with a caution, as the final 11 laps ran clean and green to the checkers.
Perhaps it was only fitting that a driver with micro sprint experience at Lanco would take the victory in the first ever Stage 1 Modified race at the Clyde. Glass would take the win, setting the race’s fastest lap of 12.221 seconds in doing so. Krupp and Szaerencits would also get to celebrate in victory lane, as they completed the podium. Kyle Rode and Jeff Hineline would complete the top five.
Mike Glass started eighth and drove to the front to take the win in the first ever Stage 1 Modified race at the Clyde. (Photo Courtesy of Keegan Simmons/Mike Knappenberger Photos)
The 270s would run their second feature of the night next, and champion Nick Skias would start on pole for the 25-lapper with Dave Williams back on the outside of the front row, just as he had been in the first feature. T. J. Greve was fastest in warmups, and carried that speed over to the makeup feature en route to scoring the win. However, he would have to start sixth this time around, just in front of heat race winners Mike Miller, Bradley Brown, and Mike Kreiser, who started seventh, eighth, and tenth, respectively.
Skias would lead on the start, with Randy West moving past Williams and into second. The big early mover would be Jason Swavely, though, as he would drive from ninth to fourth in the first two laps. The battles would rage on behind the leader, as Swavely would eventually climb to second with Billy Logeman following him into the third spot. With Greve falling out of the race with an early issue, there would be no sweep in the 270s on this evening. Skias, however, was looking for his second win of the night, and looking to improve on his second-place result in the first feature.
But Swavely was coming, and after a lap 11 restart, it was on. The two drivers that had battled so many times in 2021 in both the 270 and Hyper Racing 600 divisions would have one last battle royale before the winter. The two would trade sliders for the lead for a few laps before Swavely finally came out on top. Swavely would hold on through a few restarts, but Skias wasn’t ready to go quietly just yet. The two drivers would rip the top side as the laps wound down, separated by no more than three car lengths. Skias would appear to close in ever so slightly with each passing lap, but he would have to find something a little extra to catch Swavely before the finish. Flirting with disaster, Skias sent his No. 3s into turn 3 on the race’s penultimate lap trying to get within striking distance to make a last lap move. But Skias would give it just a little too much on the high side, and he would scrub into the wall through the corner, allowing Swavely to scamper away.
Although he hadn’t beaten Skias in the war for the championship, the Fleetwood, PA driver would at least take the final battle, as he would finish 1.996 seconds in front of Skias en route to his fourth 270 win of the year. Skias would turn the race’s fastest lap of 11.377 seconds. West would finish third to round out the podium, with Toby Blumenshine and Logeman completing the top five.
Jason Swavely drove from ninth to the lead and then held off Nick Skias to win the final 270 feature of the season. (Photo Courtesy of Brandon Worthington/Mike Knappenberger Photos)
The final feature of the 2021 racing season at the Clyde would be contested among the Skeet Craft Collision Sportsmans. Corey Schmuck, Jr. won his heat and would start from the pole with quick-timer of warmups Toby Blumenshine alongside. Champion Bret Cronrath and the other heat race winner David Ravel would complete the front two rows.
A lap 1 incident between Chris Dolan, Dave Williams, and Ryan Heckman would lead to a complete restart, but the race would then be on between Schmuck, Jr. and Cronrath, who began running the No. 26 down prior to the race’s second caution. That restart would give Cronrath a prime opportunity to pounce for the lead, and he would take advantage of it, diving to the bottom of turn 3 on the first lap after the restart to take over the top spot. Behind Cronrath, the battle for the other two podium places would be fought between Schmuck, Jr., Jason Swavely, Blumenshine, and Ravel. Swavely would move into second, but a broken wing adjuster, which moved the wing much farther back than it was supposed to be, made the already challenging task of running down Cronrath impossible. After winning the final two points races of the season and clinching the championship in the process, Cronrath would end the season with a three-peat in the winner’s circle.
The Blandon, PA driver left no doubt, as he beat Swavely to the stripe by a whopping 3.623 seconds, and turned the race’s fastest lap of 11.520 seconds. Swavely, who won the very first feature to be run this year at the Clyde back in April, fell just short of bookending the year with checkered flags. Behind him would come Schmuck, Jr., Ravel, and Blumenshine, as they completed the top five.
Bret Cronrath would close out the season by winning his third straight Skeet Craft Collision Sportsman feature. (Photo Courtesy of Keegan Simmons/Mike Knappenberger Photos)
The Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway would like to thank all of the teams, drivers, and fans for their continued support during the 2021 season. We congratulate all drivers and teams on a successful season, and there will be another release in the coming days to recognize our special award winners, as they were revealed and presented prior to the beginning of each feature. The 64th season of racing under the Lanco Micro Midget Club banner truly was one for the ages, and preparations are already being made to make the 65th season the biggest and best yet. The countdown clock is already on to April of 2022, and we can’t wait for you to comeback and LIVE the excitement that is Lanco!
Results:
270 A-Main (Makeup From 9/18/2021) (25 Laps):
1. 52T-T. J. Greve
2. 3s-Nick Skias
3. 92-Jason Swavely
4. 74-Randy West
5. 45o-Tyler Ulrich
6. 76b-Billy Logeman
7. 82-Bradley Brown
8. 26-Corey Schmuck, Jr.
9. 96w-Chase Walker
10. 39-Austin Mieczkowski
11. 48-Jonah Meck
12. 4k-Trent Eberhart (-2L)
13. 29-Brandon Shearer (DNF)
14. 34-Christi Sweigart (DNF)
15. 21d-Dave Williams (DNF)
16. 91-Jack Redcay (DNF)
17. 88d-Andrew Dietrich (DNS)
18. 53n-Ben Newmaster (DNS)
19. 8s-Mike Skias (DNS)
Hyper Racing 600 A-Main (25 Laps):
1. 7-Nick Skias
2. 3-Jesse Maurer
3. 11h-Holden Eckman
4. 23-Bradley Brown
5. 17-Brent Ely
6. 3d-Shjon Dove
7. 117-Cody West
8. 1e-Aaron Espenshade
9. 46-B. J. Antonio
10. 75k-Jarid Kunkle (-1L)
11. 16t-Joe Timmins (-1L)
12. 14-Anthony Yerger (-1L)
13. 15p-Chris Panczner (DNF)
125/4 Stroke A-Main (25 Laps):
1. 19-Matt Fernsler
2. 3-Mike Miller
3. 04-Bradley Brown
4. 76-Justin Harrington
5. 7d-Chris Dolan
6. 17-Masen Stapleton
7. 78c-Toby Blumenshine
8. 44-Riley Simmons
9. 3x-Kenny Bushey
10. 73-Andrew Rothermel
11. 57k-Blaire Schoenly
12. 78-Jarrid Hellinger
13. 15-Alyssa Holmes
14. 26-Seth Gregoni (-1L)
15. 81-Dylan Holmes (DNF)
16. 44x-Alex Lukacs (DNF)
17. 82-John Maurer (DNF)
18. 1st-Steve Simmons (DNF)
19. 7a-Noah Martin (DNF)
20. 112-Dylan Yeingst (DNF)
Stage 1 Modified A-Main (20 Laps):
1. 6-Mike Glass
2. 5k-Gavyn Krupp
3. 12-Lawson Szaerencits
4. 72-Kyle Rode
5. 5-Jeff Hineline
6. 14-Justin Newhard
7. 20-Mark Mohr
8. S1-A. J. Gerhart
9. 14b-Shelby McLaughlin
10. 01-Johnny Fugelo
11. 33e-Mark Evans
12. 9x-Connor Mirabelli
13. 25-Sonny Tete
14. 15-Joel Price
15. 30-Rob Tete
16. 16-Matt Mertz (DNF)
17. 18k-Bobby Kibler (DNF)
18. 555-Joel Smith (DNF)
19. 18-Anthony Chrobak (DNF)
20. 28-Tony Maguire (DNF)
21. 62-Robbie Tester, Jr. (DNF)
DNS: 93-Chad Rittle
DNS: 8-McKenzie Smith
270 A-Main (25 Laps):
1. 92-Jason Swavely
2. 3s-Nick Skias
3. 74-Randy West
4. 27o-Toby Blumenshine
5. 76b-Billy Logeman
6. 82-Bradley Brown
7. 45o-Tyler Ulrich
8. 39-Austin Mieczkowski
9. 19-Matt Fernsler
10. 96w-Chase Walker
11. 48-Jonah Meck
12. 21d-Dave Williams
13. 23k-Courtney Kupp
14. 30-Ryan Heckman
15. 4k-Trent Eberhart (-1L)
16. 34-Christi Sweigart (DNF)
17. 77-Mike Kreiser (DNF)
18. 5a-Anthony Yerger (DNF)
19. 29-Brandon Shearer (DNF)
20. 91-Jack Redcay (DNF)
21. 2-Mike Miller (DNF)
22. 16-Brianne Cronrath-Wittmer (DNF)
23. 5-Bret Cronrath (DNF)
24. 52T-T. J. Greve (DNF)
25. 26-Corey Schmuck, Jr. (DNF)
Skeet Craft Collision Sportsman A-Main (25 Laps):
1. 5-Bret Cronrath
2. 14-Jason Swavely
3. 26-Corey Schmuck, Jr.
4. 21v-David Ravel
5. 21-Toby Blumenshine
6. 22-Clinton Hauser
7. 16p-Patrick Kirn
8. 9g-Jamie Flickinger
9. 13s-Charles Hellinger
10. 28-Kyle Lindsey
11. 21d-Dave Williams (-1L)
12. 53-Jared St. John (-1L)
13. 30-Ryan Heckman (DNF)
14. 16-Brianne Cronrath-Wittmer (DNF)
15. 8-Michael Spadafora (DNF)
16. 61-Paul May (DNF)
17. 3s-Chris Dolan (DNF)
18. 53s-Shannon Slaughter (DNF)
Point Standings:
270 Point Standings (Top 10):
1. 3s-Nick Skias (1,466)
2. 92-Jason Swavely (-75)
3. 8s-Mike Skias (-269)
4. 82-Heath Hehnly (-418)
5. 82-Bradley Brown (-436)
6. 3-Pete Skias (-454)
7. 34-Christi Sweigart (-484)
8. 21d-Dave Williams (-504)
9. 5a-Anthony Yerger (-512)
10. 52T-T. J. Greve (-541)