Logan Bauman Wins First Sportsman Feature at Grandview Speedway – Pit Notes

The USAC East Coast 360 tour landed at Grandview for a triple header program with the modified and sportsman programs.  A 100 cars on the nose filled the pits and the overflow pit area under breezy and overcast conditions.

The Sportsman 25 lap feature saw pole sitter BJ Joly led the first 15 green flag laps until a couple of caution flags bunched the field back up.  On the second restart Logan Bauman took the lead only to have Joly retake the lead a lap later but contact and a left rear tire going flat slowed Joyl allowing Bauman to take the lead on lap 22 and take the checkered flag and make his first career trip into the sportsman victory lane at Grandview.

The top ten was rounded out by BJ Joly in second followed by Mike Stofflet, Chris Esposito, Cody Manmiller, Mike Schneck, Tom Miller, Decker Swinehart, Kenny Gilmore and Dylan Hoch in 10^th.

The heats were won by Tom Miller, BJ Joly and Logan Bauman.  The last chance consolation was won by Joey Vaccaro.

Sportsman Feature Results (25-laps) 5-14-21:

   1. Logan Bauman, 2. B.J. Joly, 3. Mike Stofflet, 4. Chris Esposito, 5. Cody Manmiller, 6. Mike Schneck, 7. Tom Miller, 8. Decker Swinehart, 9. Kenny Gilmore, 10. Dylan Hoch, 11. Kyle Lilick, 12. Ryan Beltz, 13. Jimmy Leiby, 14. Kyle Smith, 15. Parker Guldin, 16. Dakota Kohler (provisional), 17. Bryan Rhoads, 18. Kenny Bock, 19. Matt Clay, 20. Mark Kemmerer, 21. Brian Hirthler, 22. Nathan Mohr, 23. Joey Vaccaro, 24. Rich Cook, 25. Jesse Landis.

 DNQ: Colton Perry, Wayne Rotenberger, Mark Gaugler, Ryan Laise, Mark Gaughler, Ebby Ridge

Pit Notes – Sportsman:

The sportsman division also had to deal with a black & slick track after the sprint car & modified feature without any water after the modified feature which presented a one lane bottom dominate track for their feature.

With a crate win this week that evens the score up at 3 wins for the crates and 3 wins for the sportsman motors.

All three of the podium finishers recorded their best finish of the season and their sportsman racing career – Logan Bauman, BJ Joly and Mike Stofflet.

15 year old Logan Bauman made a late race pass of BJ Joly to take his first sportsman feature win at Grandview.   Logan started in the 4^th position and managed to move forward despite the lockdown bottom dominate rubbered up track.  Logan picks up his first win in only 7 starts in the Grandview Sportsman and Crate divisions.  Logan is also a graduate of the slingshots division and in recent weeks the slingshot graduates have cleaned up at Grandview.  The top 3 last week in the Crate division were Dylan Hoch, Cody Kline and Joey Vaccaro who were also all former slingshot drivers.

Postrace back at the trailer Logan commented “I just can’t believe this is real tonight. We missed 2 weeks to sort out some issues and have not been here for two weeks so the heat race was crucial for us tonight to handicap to 4^th starting position.  We used our baseline setup and tighten the car up to stick to the track since we knew the sprint cars were going to make it a bottom race.  All my passes were on restarts coming out of turn 4.  I noticed BJ was getting tight off of entry and exit and knew that something had to be going wrong with his car. When I passed BJ; I didn’t even know how many laps were left and then I saw the 2 to go and started to pray for no cautions.  When the checkered finally came I still couldn’t believe we won.”

BJ Joly had a career night with his 2^nd place finish which was his best ever finish in a 5 year career at Grandview spanning back to 2016.  BJ started the year with an updated 2013 Bicknell and high hopes for the 2021 season.  But just as racing often does; things didn’t go as planned at the 2021 Bruce Rogers Memorial for the 924 Joly entry.  In the last chance consolation BJ was involved in a turn 4 tangle that resulted in heavy damage to the new car on the first outing of the season.  BJ returned with the repaired 2013 Bicknell and qualified for both the crate and sportsman feature at his next race at Grandview but couldn’t get the “push” out of the new car. So the decision was made to return to “Badass Blue” the 2008 Bicknell which has always also been “Old Faithful” for BJ through the years.  So far this season “old faithful” has qualified in 2 out of 4 features.  The car has been on the pole before; but never been able to stay up in the top 5.  But this time the “old faithful” 2008 Bicknell came through and was only one tick shy of a win and brought home a career best 2^nd place finish for BJ with a left rear tire going flat in the final laps of the feature. 

Back at the trailer BJ reflected “Tonight was the best of my career in 6 years of racing up here at Grandview.  This is a great feeling and the reason I will continue racing after this year.  I bought this car 3 years ago and the car is always there and never lets me down no matter what I throw at it.  We could have been a hare better with the setup.  We knew the USAC sprints would change the track and it would be a slick one with everyone on the bottom so we tried a different setup and it worked.   On lap 22 got pinched into the wall by a lapped car and finished with a left rear flat.  I felt it right away but didn’t know what was wrong.  I didn’t want to go backwards again and pushed myself to stay up front.  I’m really looking forward to our future races.”   

 Former asphalt racer Mike Stofflet recorded a career best 3^rd place finish on dirt and at Grandview.  Mike stated “3^rd place feels like a win for us since we have been struggling all season until last week when we hit the setup and finished 12^th.   My asphalt experience came into play tonight with rolling into the center and then staying on the bottom.  One thing that I think really helped us was that I ran a vintage car here on Friday night and the track was the same black and slick track as tonight.  Tonight we used the same setup we used last night on the vintage car and it worked on both cars with a 2^nd for the vintage car and 3^rd place finish for the sportsman car respectively.”

Chris Esposito finished a strong 4^th from a 9^th starting position to make it two top 5 finishes in a for the 31A entry.   Chris started the season with a new car and the new motor broke in the first two weeks of the season.  Things had not been going well for the 31A entry until last week when Chris posted a 5^th place finish.

Chris commented “We made the right calls tonight for the rubbered up track and the car was real good.  You really had to pick and choose when to go and I was able to pick off 2 cars on the lap 17 restart by going to the top but immediately went right back down to the bottom after the pass.  No bit up top keep everyone on the bottom.  It was frustrating that we were faster than cars in front of us but didn’t want to take any more chances with the top then we had to.  It was a night for the under horsepower 602 crates and the upfront cars.  I’d really like to thank the sponsors and crew for sticking with us.  We are finding out what the new car likes.”

Cody Manmiller posted another 5^th place finish which makes three 5^th place finishes in a row with two at Grandview and one at Big Diamond.  Cody reflected “Sprint cars always make it a tough track.  When our feature came around the track was already laying rubber and it became a battle to the bottom.  I felt like we had a good car and just had to put myself in the right spots to move forward on the restarts.  We are very happy with three 5^th place finishes in a row.”

Mike Schneck had a solid weekend with a 6^th at Grandview and a 5^th at Big Diamond on Friday.  Mike stated “Grandview didn’t start off great as we had brake issues in hot laps.  In the feature between restarting on the outside and a soft brake pedal I lost 2 spots back to 6^th but I’ll take 6^th which is my first Grandview top 10.”

Point leader Kenny Gilmore finished 9^th from a 15^th starting position.  Kenny noted “The track was rubbered up on lap 1 with no water and once it takes rubber it’s follow the leader and if you get out of the rubber you will have no traction since your tires are already worn down and junk from running in the rubber so you have no choice but to follow the leader in the rubber groove.  I picked up some positions on a few mistakes by other drivers and a restart that I was on the outside but had to immediately get back in line.”

Matt Clay had a day to forget but turned it around in the end by not quitting on it.  Clay was involved in a 4 car tangle on lap 0 of heat race 1 and was on the hook and DNF for the heat race.  Starting last in the consolation he again was in a tangle with Dakota Kohler who was also involved in the heat race tangle.  Clay already started in the back of the field; so he went to the rear one more time but managed to move forward from 12^th to 6^th to qualify for the feature in the 24^th and last transfer spot to the feature.

Dakota Kohler ended up on his lid in his heat race and went off on the hook.  He got back out for the consolation only to get in another incident and break his steering box among other things.  Dakota was a DNF in both the heat and consolation but he was out for both thanks to a lot of help from various teams.

Dakota reflected “When we flipped in the heat we only damaged the body and bent the carburetor studs.  The track wasn’t going to let me run with how the body was and I didn’t have a roof on the car so everyone started pulling panels off and straightening, taping and zip tying anything that wasn’t able to be fixed.  At one point there was at least 4 different teams helping us between Craig Whitmoyer, Dylan Hoch, the Leiby’s and BJ Joly’s team and Beau Drobot was here watching and came over and helped us.  It was awesome to know that there are people willing to help us get back together to go back out.  We got back out for the consolation and immediately got in another incident and got clipped by another car which broke the steering box.  We didn’t have time to change the steering box for the feature so the Leiby’s said I could run Jesse’s black 9 to use with my provisional starting position and get some points since I’m currently 8^th in points.

In the feature I was just trying to stay out of trouble and didn’t want to wreck their car for them so I was more cautious than I would normally be.  I was able to keep Leiby’s car clean and move from 25^th to 16^th and pickup enough points to stay in 8^th.  It was also the first time I drove a Teo and coils and I found that I definitely like coils and would like to change one of my bar cars over to coils at some point.  I certainly would like to thank the Leiby’s, Whitmoyer’s, Joly’s and Hoch’s crews for their help and everyone that helped us.  I can’t thank the Leiby’s enough for the ride for the feature.”

The Hirthler’s had the 117 on the premises for Adie Delliponti to run for the second time but when the 4* broke a valve in hot laps and Brian had to use the 117 as a backup car. 

Jesse Landis got his first win last week and in the first heat got involved in a tangle that set the tone for his day this week.  Jesse ended up on the other side of the spectrum this week with a 25^th place finish in the feature.  The ups and downs of racing.

Ryan Beltz worked on his car all week to return to action after a hard hit last week taking out the entire right side of his car in the 1^st heat race.  Beltz returned this week and finished 12^th to stabilize his 6^th position in the season points.

Last week Bryan Rhodes also had several hard hits from two different cars and one from the outside retaining wall in a backstretch red flag incident.  Bryan just finished the car, scaled it and towed straight to the track on Saturday to make the race this week.  The car came home one piece this week with a 17^th place finish. The 922 team is looking forward fine tuning their setup over the next couple of races including the Memorial Day weekend double header with the Thunder on the Hill Series.

Next up on the schedule at Grandview is another triple-header show of racing action featuring the T.P.Trailers Modifieds, T.P.Truck Equipment Sportsman and the Outlaw Vintage Racers. It all gets the green at 7:30 p.m. May 22nd. Adult admission is $14 while youngsters 11 and under are admitted free.