Kyle Lillick Wins Sportsman Season Opener at Grandview & Pit Notes

Grandview Speedway opened up their 2021 season with the 4^th annual Bruce Rogers Memorial Money Maker under spectacularly clear blue skies with diminishing winds.  The sportsman division got their first outing of the 2021 season with some new rules and weight breaks for the crate motors competing against the sportsman motors.

Kyle Lillick won the sportsman feature from the pole position after a 25 lap battle with Kenny Gilmore, Brian Hirthler & Kyle Smith.   The race only had two early cautions and then ran 22 green laps and Kyle Lillick led all but lap 11 which was briefly led by Kyle Smith only to have Lillick quickly reclaim the lead.  On lap 14 Kenny Gilmore moved into second made two late race attempts to pass Lillick for the lead.  Lillick was able to drop down low and make the block to take the win by a margin of victory of .25 seconds. 

Kyle Lillick may have led 24 of the 25 laps but this win was not your typical runaway & hide win as Lillick’s lead was never over 1 second and for most laps it was under half a second or less.  The final 22 laps ran straight green and when the checkered flag flew on the 11 minute feature Lillick took the hard fought win and his first trip to victory lane in 2021.  

The sportsman top ten was rounded out by Kenny Gilmore in second followed by Brian Hirthler, Kyle Smith, Jimmy Leiby, Mark Kemmerer, Brandon Edgar, Bryan Rhoads, Doug Snyder and Ryan Conrad in 10^th place.

Heat races were won by Kyle Lillick, Nate Mohr and Kyle Smith.  The last chance consolation was won by Joey Vaccaro.

Grandview Speedway Sportsman Feature (25-laps) 4-03-21:

 1. Kyle Lilick, 2. Kenny Gilmore, 3. Brian Hirthler, 4. Kyle Smith, 5. Jimmy Leiby, 6. Mark Kemmerer, 7. Brandon Edgar, 8. Bryan Rhoads, 9. Doug Snyder, 10. Ryan Conrad, 11. Chuck Eckert, 12. Cody Schantz, 13. Jesse Landis, 14. Lex Shive, 15. Nathan Mohr, 16. Joey Vaccaro, 7. Kenny Bock, 18. Decker Swinehart, 19. Mike Schneck, 20. Mike Stofflet, 21. Parker Guldin, 22. Tyler James, 23. Tom Miller, 24. Kevin Hirthler.

DNQ: BJ Joly, Mark Gaugler, Brad Force, Dakota Kohler, Wayne Rotenberger Jr., Nick Faust, Colton Perry, Logan Bauman. DNS: Chris Esposito.

Sportsman Pit Notes

Kyle Lillick led 24 of 25 laps of the feature but had a car on his bumper for the entire race with no margin for error at any time.  Lillick never had a led over 1 second and had the crafty veteran Kenny Gilmore make two late race challenges that Lillick was able to hold off for the win.  Lillick reflected “I had a difficult time holding the lead since the track had so many grooves that were working.  I was running primarily the bottom to take care of my tires but after Smith got by me I decided to move around to see if I could find anything up top but the car wasn’t as good up there so I returned to the bottom and only moved up to get around the lapped cars who definitely helped me out so no one could get underneath me.”

Kenny Gilmore finished a close 2^nd to Kyle Lillick from his 6^th starting position.  Back at the trailer Kenny commented “I had a lot of fun for an old guy and these young guys are just getting better and better.  The front 6 or 7 cars were all good and I knew I gotta go to the front early in the race.  I’m real efficient on the bottom and it still had grip and you got to go were there not and they weren’t on the bottom until I got to Lillick.  He came down and took my lane away and my plan was to go to the high groove but my mistake was I didn’t go up high enough.  There was grip way up on the top and just ran out of laps.  I still make mistakes after all these years.”

The 56 year old Kenny Gilmore (7) is running the sportsman class with his nephew Kyle Smith (77S) while his son Brett Gilmore is running the family modified for the 2021 season.  Gilmore’s nephew Kyle Smith finished 4^th and noted “We had a car that could win and I made a few too many mistakes in the end.  It was quicker up top and I needed to get up there.”

The Hirthler Brothers had a busy night racing in both modified and sportsman divisions and qualifying all 4 cars into the program.   Brian made a last lap pass of Kyle Smith to grab 3^rd place from a 7^th starting position on the grid.  The 2020 sportsman division champion now sets his sights on defending his sportsman point championship and going for two championships in a row.

To say the start of the 2021 was a good day for Bryan Rhoads and the 922 team would be the understatement of the year.  He qualified 2^nd in his heat race which was something he did with regularity in 2020 matter of fact with the handicapping he won a boat load of heat races in 2020 but never could translate the heat race success into feature race success.  Now in his second year of racing Bryan made the jump to feature success today with a career best 8^th place finish in only 15 crate sportsman starts.  Bryan noted “The heat to the feature at Grandview has always been like night and day for us.  In the heat today we were close to perfect and in the feature we got the car to stay smooth and adjusted for more forward drive.  Our first feature top ten is a milestone accomplishment for our team and now we just need to fine tune a couple of things and stay consistent.  Our goals for this year are to get better every week and lock down a win and have a solid race car by the end of the year.”

Jimmy Leiby changed cars during the winter to a 2021 Hig Fab chassis and has picked up right where he left off last year.  Jimmy picked up his first top 5 finish of the season in only the 3^rd time in the new car.  Jimmy finished 5^th in the feature from a 9^th starting position.  Jimmy’s plans for the 2021 Grandview season are to win the sportsman points championship and do double duty with his car in the sportsman and Jesse’s car in the crate class on days when both are competed as separate classes.   

The uncle and nephew team of Doug Snyder (69S) and Ryan Conrad (327) were able to put both cars in the top 10 with a 9^th and 10^th place finish respectively.  Uncle Doug got off to a bit of a rocky start getting sent to the back early in his heat race but managed to work back through the 11 cars and finished 5^th and in a transfer position.  Doug noted “We were able to make up some of the starting position we gave up in qualifying and the car was really good on restarts.  I was hoping for a late race caution but never got it.  We were very happy getting both of our crates in the top 10.”   Ryan finished 10^th in his first outing of the season.  Ryan noted “Grandview is different from other tracks because Grandview has a top and a bottom which many places only have a bottom.  My car wasn’t good on top so I stayed on the bottom for the feature.”

BJ Joly had a strong car all day but just couldn’t get the racing luck to match.  In his heat race he was running 2^nd and spun on the final lap to fall out of a transfer spot to 7^th.  In the last chance consolation Joly was again in a transfer position when he was collected in a tangle which sent him back to the pits on the hook. BJ is hoping his luck changes for the 2021 points season and he is able to make a run at the points top 10 in 2021.

The field consisted of 16 crate motors and 17 sportsman motors. The top 10 had 6 sportsman motors and 4 crate motors.

Next up at Grandview is the first point race of the 2021 season with modified and sportsman divisions on the slate for Saturday April 10^th and hot laps at 6:00 and racing starting at 7:00.