By Kasey Kreider
Saturday night’s racing at the Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway saw excitement in several different forms across the five divisions of racing. A champion returned to the winner’s circle not once, but twice. Two more drivers took wins in races that came down to the final corner. And the other feature saw a third-year driver finally make their first trip to Brubacher Victory Lane.
Hyper Racing Wingless 600
For better or for worse, you’ll be hard pressed to find a driver more bold or fearless on the racetrack than Kunkletown’s Gunnar Pio. The pilot of car No. 28 needed every bit of his natural aggression on Saturday night to keep a hungry pack of challengers at bay and score the victory in the Hyper Racing Wingless 600 class.
Pio’s run to the win started with an impressive move on lap 2, when he slid both Nate Freed and Steven Snyder, Jr. in the same corner to grab an early hold on the race’s top spot.
The fight for the win quickly established itself between Pio and Snyder, Jr., and there were several occasions where Snyder, Jr. made a swoop for top top spot, but couldn’t hold onto the position.
Pio got some breathing room in the closing laps as Snyder, Jr. battled with Christian Bruno for second following a restart. But running right on the razor’s edge, Pio clocked the wall with a few laps remaining and lost a wheel cover, drawing another yellow flag.
Eventually, the race came down to a two-lap shootout with Pio and Snyder, Jr. still locked into the top two spots. The No. 21s applied pressure, as Pio bounced off the wall coming through the final corner while Snyder, Jr. tried to make the winning pass. But Pio still was able to mash the throttle first and carry his momentum forward to the checkered flag.
“With about 10 to go my power steering went out, so it got a little tougher to steer,” Pio said. “Just very grateful for this win, especially against Steven and Christian.”
Snyder, Jr. and Bruno came home second and third, respectively. Dallas Damask finished fourth and Ryan Groff brought home a top five.
Results:
1. 28-Gunnar Pio[3]; 2. 21S-Steven Snyder Jr[2]; 3. 5-Christian Bruno[5]; 4. 3B-Dallas Damask[6]; 5. 03-Ryan Groff[7]; 6. 16-Marty Brian[22]; 7. 21-Mason Beinhower[9]; 8. 98-Matthew Warner[24]; 9. 7L-Chase Layser[13]; 10. 22H-Fred Heinly[10]; 11. 68-Brendan Hires[15]; 12. 1F-James Fries[18]; 13. 11H-Holden Eckman[11]; 14. 7-Shelby McLaughlin[16]; 15. 64-Ronnie Dawson[17]; 16. 23-Bradley Brown[19]; 17. 18-Zachery Bealer[12]; 18. 2S-Garyt Smith[23]; 19. $30-Dominic Foster[14]; 20. 86-Bobby Butler[8]; 21. 18M-Brayden Mickley[21]; 22. 91-Nate Freed[1]; 23. 88-Justin Yohn[20]; 24. 17-Cole Perez[4]
Points (Top 5):
1. 28-Gunnar Pio[185]; 2. 3B-Dallas Damask[-5]; 3. 16-Marty Brian[-9]; 4. 21-Mason Beinhower[-23]; 5. 03-Ryan Groff[-41]
Gunnar Pio held off Steven Snyder, Jr. on a green-white-checkered restart to claim the win in the Hyper Racing Wingless 600s. (Photo Courtesy of Mike Knappenberger Photos)
Skeet Craft Collision Sportsman
It was no easy row to hoe, but Corey Schmuck, Jr. put on a fantastic drive to the front of the Skeet Craft Collision Sportsman feature, and held on through a last-lap lapped traffic scare to claim the victory by just 0.026 seconds at the start-finish line.
Josh Stoyer started on pole and led most of the way through a race that was only slowed by one caution period. However, while Stoyer was running around the bottom, Schmuck, Jr. planted his car around the top of the speedway and used the high side to cut his way through the pack.
With five laps to go, Schmuck, Jr. made what seemed to be the race-winning pass and opened up a lead of a couple car lengths over Stoyer. But the leaders hit lapped traffic coming to see the white flag, and that’s when things got interesting. Schmuck, Jr. nearly got boxed in behind a lapped car off turn 2, but bounced off of Stoyer’s machine as both cars tried to clear the traffic. The drivers ran side-by-side through the final corner, with Schmuck, Jr. just barely nosing ahead at the line.
“I was like, ‘you know what, we just gotta try and see what happens,’” Schmuck, Jr. said. “Man, I got two heck of a good runs coming off of [turn] 4 and that propelled me ahead of him going into [turns] 1 and 2.”
Behind Stoyer was Brandon Heist to complete the podium. Patrick Kirn finished fourth in his first race of the season while Toby Blumenshine came from 19th to fifth to round out the top five.
Results:
1. 26-Corey Schmuck Jr[6]; 2. 15-Josh Stoyer[1]; 3. 99-Brandon Heist Sr[8]; 4. 16P-Patrick Kirn[4]; 5. 21-Toby Blumenshine[19]; 6. 27-Dylan Pennypacker[3]; 7. 20-Max Fasnacht[5]; 8. 1J-Justin Harrington[10]; 9. 77-Michael Kreiser[2]; 10. 17-Masen Stapleton[9]; 11. 30-Ryan Heckman[14]; 12. 23K-Courtney Kupp[11]; 13. 28-Kyle Lindsey[22]; 14. 19-Wes Fasnacht[7]; 15. 21D-Dave Williams[18]; 16. 54-Lisa Warren[17]; 17. 21V-David Ravel[12]; 18. 25X-Daniel Lane Jr[21]; 19. 22J-Jonathan Hellinger[15]; 20. 77J-Jade Smith[13]; 21. 31-Tyler Martin[20]; 22. 2T-Doug Pearson[16]
Points (Top 5):
1. 26-Corey Schmuck Jr[185]; 2. 99-Brandon Heist Sr[185]; 3. 15-Josh Stoyer[-10]; 4. 21-Toby Blumenshine[-15]; 5. 1J-Justin Harrington[-17]
Corey Schmuck, Jr. held off Josh Stoyer on the final lap to score the win in the Skeet Craft Collision Sportsman division. (Photo Courtesy of Mike Knappenberger Photos)
Border Magic 270
In the first outing of the season for the Schenck Racing No. 92, defending champion Jason Swavely put the machine into the winner’s circle for the first of his two feature wins during the evening.
It wasn’t an easy path for Swavely, as he started seventh on the grid with plenty of fast cars ahead of him. Chase Walker, Anthony Yerger, and Nick Skias all took turns at the front of the field. A hornet’s nest of lapped traffic provided some brief shuffling amongst the leaders, but a quick caution set up a restart with Swavely now planted in the second position.
Swavely was able to rocket by Skias on the next restart and fend off a counter attack or two from the No. 3s to hold onto the advantage. Although Skias never let Swavely get out of sight throughout the rest of the race, he just wasn’t quite able to mount enough of a challenge to try and take the lead back. Swavely ended up taking the checkered flag by just over three-quarters of a second.
“We struggled a little bit in the heat race… we needed to pick up a couple tenths,” Swavely said. “We made some car adjustments, made some motor adjustments, and we got her back on point.”
Nick Skias came home with second while Brandon Heist once again finished third. Mike Skias and John Maurer rounded out the rest of the top five.
Results:
1. 92-Jason Swavely[7]; 2. 3S-Nick Skias[8]; 3. 5R-Brandon Heist Sr[6]; 4. 8S-Mike Skias[11]; 5. 82-John Maurer[12]; 6. 5A-Anthony Yerger[4]; 7. 96W-Chase Walker[1]; 8. 48-Jonah Meck[14]; 9. 7D-Chris Dolan[20]; 10. 11R-Tommy Rinck[22]; 11. 76B-Brent Shearer[13]; 12. 54-William Mohring[9]; 13. 29J-Jacob Neff[18]; 14. 41-Mike Boyer[17]; 15. 6-Danial Boyer[3]; 16. 19-Matt Fernsler[21]; 17. 21J-Josh Weiant[24]; 18. 4-Dylan Pence[19]; 19. 91-Jack Redcay[2]; 20. 1L-Dave Labe[5]; 21. 1A-Austin Graby[16]; 22. 27O-Billy Logeman[10]; 23. 14C-Carter Weiant[23]; 24. 34-Christi Sweigart[15]
Points (Top 5):
1. 3S-Nick Skias[180]; 2. 99-Brandon Heist Sr[-10]; 3. 7D-Chris Dolan[-16]; 4. 8S-Mike Skias[-19]; 5. 92-Jason Swavely[-23]
Jason Swavely put the No. 92 back into Brubacher Victory Lane in the Border Magic 270s. (Photo Courtesy of Mike Knappenberger Photos)
Offroad Motorsports 125/4 Stroke
Going into Saturday night’s Offroad Motorsports 125/4 Stroke A-Main, Chris Dolan had been riding a four-race win streak between winged and wingless 125/4 Stroke events at the speedway. Bringing an end to that run was Ephrata’s Seth Gregory, who put on a clinical performance to grab his first Lanco win.
The race struggled to get going through several early caution flags, but Greogry and Dolan established themselves as the top two contenders for the win once the event finally got into a rhythm.
Gregory was holding a solid three car length lead over Dolan before the No. 75 got tangled up with a lapped car entering turn 1, causing him to lose several positions and several seconds of time. This put Gregory’s advantage at roughly two seconds over new runner-up Michael Hoffmaster, and the gap only grew as Gregory picked through traffic cleanly.
By the time he reached the checkered flag, Gregory had amassed a margin of victory of almost four seconds as the third-year driver who had previously won a race at Linda’s added a Lanco triumph to his collection.
“We’ve always been decently quick, and we finally put together a good race,” Gregory said. “My goal is to at least get top five in points here. If we can get that, I’ll be really happy. And to finally get my first win here is always really good.”
Hoffmaster finished second, while Trevor Waegel came home third for the second consecutive week. John Maurer finished fourth from 14th and Dan Lane, Jr. came from 12th to fifth.
Results:
1. 14-Seth Gregory[1]; 2. 32-Michael Hoffmaster[3]; 3. 44S-trevor Waegel[7]; 4. 82-John Maurer[14]; 5. 16-Daniel Lane Jr[12]; 6. 75-Chris Dolan[6]; 7. X-Dave Schroeder[17]; 8. 76-Brandon Heist Sr[23]; 9. 15H-Don Hess[16]; 10. 5-Keegan Stratton[15]; 11. 3-Kiptyn Stratton[2]; 12. 15-Alyssa Holmes[5]; 13. 19-Matt Fernsler[8]; 14. 81-Dylan Holmes[11]; 15. 74-Paige Rothermel[20]; 16. 78C-Sara Borror[18]; 17. 27E-Ellyana Snyder[24]; 18. 96-Blayne Bainbridge[21]; 19. 112-Dylan Yeingst[4]; 20. 4W-Brandon Worthington[19]; 21. 73-Andrew Rothermel[10]; 22. 26C-Michael Coen[9]; 23. 04-Sam Borger[13]; 24. (DNS) 21S-Samuel Davenport
Points (Top 5):
1. 44S-trevor Waegel[180]; 2. 75-Chris Dolan[-4]; 3. 32-Michael Hoffmaster[-5]; 4. 82-John Maurer[-10]; 5. 14-Seth Gregory[-20]
Seth Gregory led all 25 laps in a dominant performance for his first Offroad Motorsports 125/4 Stroke win. (Photo Courtesy of Mike Knappenberger Photos)
Hyper Racing Winged 600
After claiming one checkered flag in the Border Magic 270s, Jason Swavely decided that the only thing better was to do it twice, and he won the nightcap for the Hyper Racing Winged 600s.
Anthony Yerger was the early leader in the feature, but Swavely moved up from fifth quickly and made the pass for the lead in one move to grab the advantage.
As Swavely expanded his gap, Christian Bruno began to charge up into the runner-up position. The No. 5 made solid time on the bottom, but began to reel in Swavely from nearly two seconds back once he moved to the top line.
A caution with eight to go proved to work to Swavely’s benefit, however, as the veteran made some critical in-car adjustments during the yellow flag. Even though Bruno was able to close the gap for a restart, the No. 14 came back to life during the stretch run and pulled back away for the victory.
“I started getting free on entry, so when that caution came out I made some in-car adjustments and got myself a little better on exit,” Swavely said. “And man, this thing’s a freakin’ rocket. We got these cars working well.”
Bruno got his second podium of the night with a second-place result while Billy Logeman made a nice late-race rally to finish third. Jesse Maurer and Yerger completed the top five.
Results:
1. 14-Jason Swavely[5]; 2. 5-Christian Bruno[9]; 3. 97-Billy Logeman[12]; 4. 3-Jesse Maurer[4]; 5. 5A-Anthony Yerger[1]; 6. 51-Chris Gerhart[11]; 7. 11H-Holden Eckman[6]; 8. 117-Cody West[3]; 9. 44-Zachery Bealer[18]; 10. 29-Brent Shearer[2]; 11. 23-Bradley Brown[13]; 12. 71-Brian Kramer[8]; 13. 11Z-Zachary Light[7]; 14. 25-Kenneth Beinhower III[16]; 15. 15P-Christopher Panczner[20]; 16. 117X-Randy West[14]; 17. 66A-Marvin Albright[10]; 18. 0K-Pat Kelly[15]; 19. 2XL-Trevor Stover[17]; 20. (DNS) L13-Robert Potter
Points (Top 5):
1. 14-Jason Swavely[195]; 2. 97-Billy Logeman[-20]; 3. 11H-Holden Eckman[-23]; 4. 3-Jesse Maurer[-38]; 5. 23-Bradley Brown[-48]
Jason Swavely made it two wins on the same night as he sprinted to the Hyper Racing Winged 600 victory. (Photo Courtesy of Mike Knappenberger Photos)
Next Saturday, April 27th, the Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway returns to action with Checkered Flag Fan Club Night at the speedway. All five points-paying classes will be in action as the stars of the Mason Dixon 270 Racing Series will also join Lanco’s best in the division during next week’s festivities. Gates open at 4 p.m. with warmups and racing beginning at 5:30 p.m. Don’t miss out on another action-packed night and the chance to come LIVE the excitement that is Lanco!