Gular & Kohler Claim Grandview Wins

 Warm and humid conditions greeted the race teams and fan as Grandview speedway held their 4^th modified and sportsmen point race and added the URC sprints to the card to make it a 3 division card for the night with nearly 100 cars on the grounds.

The 29 car modified 30 lap feature was lead to green by Colt Harris and Justin Grim with Grim grabbing the early lead.   Kevin Hirthler spun on lap 2 and the ensuing pile in collected 12 cars.  Amazingly only Brad Grim could not continue while the other 11 involved were able to stay on track.  Justin Grim held the lead right up to the 3^rd and final caution for another multi car tangle in turn 1.  This tangle took Kevin Hirthler, Brett Kressley, Briggs Danner, Joe Funk and Ryan Grim to the pits and ended their night.  On the final restart of the event it was Mike Gular darting to the lead were he checked out and led the last 20 green flag laps right to the checkered flag and into victory lane.  Justin Grim turned in a very strong 2^nd place run holding the veteran Jeff Strunk off in 3^rd place.

 The top ten was rounded out by Mike Lisowski in 4^th, followed by Craig Von Dohren, Loudon Reimert, Ryan Watt, Dylan Swinehart, Clay Butler and Craig Whitmoyer.

Heat winners were Colt Harris, Ryan Grim, Jeff Strunk and Mike Gular.  The consolation winners were Brad Grim and Kenny Gilmore.

The sportsman 25 lap feature saw Scott Kohler & Dakota Kohler (no relation) lead the field to green.  Scott Kohler led the first 14 laps under green with the crate entry of Dakota Kohler staying a close second.   On lap 15 Dakota Kohler made his move and took the lead over from Scott Kohler at the line by .016 just before the yellow came out on lap 16.  The one yellow turned into 4 yellows for tangle incidents on attempted restarts that took 8 cars back in the pits and out of the race when a single file restart finally got the field going again.  In the meantime; leader Dakota Kohler failed to fire on the 3^rd restart and also retired to the pits giving the lead back to Scotty Kohler in his 12S entry.  Nate Brinker emerged from a 7^th starting position to take 2^nd place after the series of restarts but Scott Kohler was on a mission and on every circuit he increased his lead over Brinker and checked out to a nearly 3 second margin when taking the checkered flag for his first victory in his second year of Grandview sportsman competition.

The sportsman top 10 was rounded by Nate Brinker, Mark Kemmerer, Brandon Edgar, Chris Esposito, Brad Arnold, Jimmy Leiby, Kyle Smith, Ryan Beltz and Decker Swinehart.

Sportsman heat winners for the night were Dakota Kohler, John McGovern and Scott Kohler.  Brad Arnold won the consolation event for the night.

Modified Pit Notes

With all the confusion and changes from week to week due to the late starting season; the 2A car of Mike Gular has quietly come home with enough frequency to get handicapped in the 8^th starting position.  That’s all Gular needed to grab his first 2020 win at Grandview.  He won the 2018 championship without an actual event win and is also the 2019 76er defending champion.  Welcome home Mike.

Last week’s winner Dylan Swinehart was able to keep his momentum going with an 8^th place finish from the prior week’s winner starting position of 16^th.  Dylan is hoping to turn the corner and continue with the consistent top 5 and top 10 finishes for the remainder of the season.

Justin Grim handicapped to a pole starting position and was able to secure a 2^nd place finish while holding Jeff Strunk at bay in 3^rd place.   The 61 team is looking to be a regular factor in the feature races for the rest of the season.  Justin has qualified for 3 of the 4 points races at Grandview this season and his 2^nd place finish is his best this year.

The back to front run of the night went to Ryan Watt who weaved his way through the two “big one” tangles to get a 7^th place finish from a 23^rd place starting position.  Ryan also did the double duty deal with the # 39 URC Sprint car and pulled down a 15^th place finish.

Craig Whitmore also finished 10^th from an 18^th starting position.

Colt Harris has returned to Grandview with a brand new car and a new number – 2.  Harris won his heat, handicapped to the pole and got a 13^th place finish as he has made continued progress in a few short weeks of attending Grandview with a new car. Harris continues to run the 7 entry at Big Diamond on Friday nights while the 2 car is being used for Grandview.

Corey Merkel was last seen at Grandview a few years ago in a limited late model.  But this year he has returned in recent weeks with his #16 modified and this week qualified for his first Grandview feature of 2020 and finished 18^th.

Brett Kressley, Kevin Hirthler and Briggs Danner continue to have weekly wrong place wrong time bad luck and were collected in the lap 9 pileup which ended their night early.

Rich Laubach was back in the 7L this week but mechanical issues gave Laubach a DNF in the heat race and the car could not make the call for the consolation event.  Laubach took a provisional and jumped into Ron Myers # 18 to continue his quest for the point championship.   Laubach was able to move forward 10 places from 29^th to 19^th and help his point effort for the season.  Ron Myers is a racer’s racer and this is not the first time he has help Laubach and other Grandview competitors to pursue points by providing a ride in his car when needed.

Eric Biehn has struggled this season with finding their setup on the 87 and has resulted multi DNQ’s.  But this week Eric was able to qualify in the last available position for the feature and started 28^th.  Eric was able to go forward for a 15^th place finish from starting dead last in 28^th starting position.  Eric felt they now have a good starting point on their setup as the 87 team looks forward to handicapping to the front of the field.

Sportsman Notes

Scott Kohler had the best day of his sophomore year in sportsman with his first career sportsman feature win at Grandview.  Kohler started the season with a brand new Teo Pro car and high expectations but weeks of continued electrical issues have prevented the 12S team from even being able to start to tune the chassis and setup.   They have even raced the car at the most recent Thunder on the Hill with the modifieds as an opportunity to sort out and locate their electrical issues.  As recent as last week the electrical issues were still taking the 12s out and back to the pits on the push truck during the heat races.  But Kohler and his crew’s persistence during the week was finally rewarded as they find the faulty $50 part and have moved on in a big way with their first win at Grandview.      

Nate Brinker has been chasing the setup on both his modified and sportsman entry this year.  On Friday night Brinker was shaking down the modified at Big Diamond and was able to make the feature but got involved in a 12 car melee.  The sportsmen car has qualified in all outings at Grandview and in his best outing to date Brinker was able to finish a strong 2^nd place from his 8^th place starting position.

Decker Swinehart continued his rookie year progression with his first top 10 finish of the season.  Decker qualified for the feature with a 3^rd place finish in the consolation which placed him with a 21^st starting position in the feature.  Decker was able to negotiate the 3 major restart cautions and secured a 10^th place finish from his 21^st starting position.

 Kyle Lillick & Brad Brightbill both started the night in the top 5 of the points and the lap 16 incident took both out early with a 20^th and 22^nd place finish respectively.  The highest finisher of the top 5 in points was Brad Arnold with a 6^th place finish.  

Last week Kyle Smith got involved in a tangle which stood the 77s on its nose and over onto his lid in turn 1 and 2 during the feature race.  Kyle was shaken but not stirred and was right back in the saddle this week.  Kyle didn’t miss a beat as he qualified for the feature handicap with a 3^rd place heat finish and collected an 8^th place feature finish this week.

 Dean Bachman continues to have some miserable luck as for his 3^rd race in a row he has been involved in multi car tangles.  Bachman was involved in the lap 16 tangle and retired to the pits for the night.