Kressley Claims 5th Win of Season in Photo Finish at Grandview Speedway & Pit Notes

Under clearing skies and warm and conditions Grandview hosted a 3 division show with the modified and sportsman divisions racing in their 10^th point race of the season along with the sportsman and modified vintage cars.   A brief shower before the gates opened delayed the heat races a few minutes and presented heavy and challenging track conditions for the heat races.

Brett Kressley picked up the photo finish modified win over Craig Von Dohren at the checkered flag for his 5^th trip to victory lane this season at Grandview Speedway.  In the sportsman feature Kenny Gilmore made a late race pass on Logan Bauman to take his first win of the season.

The 30 lap modified feature was led to green by Carroll Hine and Darrin Schuler.  A red flag before lap 1 for a track blocking tangle and 4 more yellows before lap 3 finally gave way to some green flag racing with Darrin Schuler taking commanding early lead but it was short lived as Brett Kressley moved into the lead on lap 9 from his 16^th starting position.  The final caution of the night came out on lap 13 as Corey Merkel lost a tire due to hard racing contact.  On the 6^th and final restart; Kressley continued to lead Howard and Strunk with Craig Von Dohren on the move from 6^th.  By lap 23 Von Dohren had moved into second behind Kressley.  As Kressley entered lapped traffic; Von Dohren closed in on the lead.   The final 5 laps were side by side battle in lapped traffic with Brett Kressley holding on for the win by the narrowest of margins in a virtual dead heat photo finish at the checkered flag for his 5^th win of the season.

In victory lane Brett Kressley noted “Unbelievable; we never wind up on top in these close ones end but this time we did and everything went our way.  I thought we had a bigger lead coming through the lapped traffic but obviously we didn’t.  The car has been good every week this season and that’s thanks to the sponsors and crew.  Hopefully we will keep it rolling right next week.

The top ten was rounded out by Craig Dohren in second place, followed by Jeff Strunk, Jared Umbenhauer, Mike Maresca, Duane Howard, Doug Manmiller, Ryan Grim, Dylan Swinehart and Jack Butler in 10^th place.

Modified Feature Results (30-laps):

 1. Brett Kressley, 2. Craig Von Dohren, 3. Jeff Strunk, 4. Jared Umbenhauer, 5. Mike Maresca, 6. Duane Howard, 7. Doug Manmiller, 8. Ryan Grim, 9. Dylan Swinehart, 10. Jack Butler, 11. Darrin Schuler, 12. Eric Biehn, 13. Brad Grim, 14. Brad Arnold, 15. Carroll Hine III, 16. Joe Funk III, 17. Kevin Hirthler, 18. Ray Swinehart, 19. Justin Grim, 20. Cory Merkel, 21. Ron Kline, 22. Mark Kratz, 23. Bobby Gunther Walsh, 24. Jesse Leiby, 25. Ron Haring Jr., 26. Timmy Buckwalter, 27. Mike Lisowski, 28. Kevin Graver.

DNQ: Brett Gilmore, John Willman, Jordan Henn, Ryan Lilick, Danny Bouc, Craig Whitmoyer, Nate Brinker, Glenn Owens and Chris Gambler.

The DNQ list was filled with drivers who only had their first or second DNQ of the season and are not familiar with being on the outside of the field looking in.  The names are only changing on the DNQ list proving the level of weekly competition just to make the feature.

Modified Pit Notes – Point Race # 10

Brett Kressley picked up his 5^th win of the season over 2^nd place Craig Von Dohren by a margin of victory that was just too close to call.  This win gave Kressley 14 additional points over the second place Von Dohren for the day of racing.  Back at the trailer Brett noted “That was my closest race ever for sure.  He made his charge for the front a little late so I had no idea that he was that close.  Early in the race; coming from 16^th on the grid I was shocked we got the lead as early as lap 9 but there were a bunch of cautions in the beginning giving us restarts that advanced our position.  The track was great last night and fit my style for sure.”

Craig Von Dohren finished 2^nd in a photo finish with Brett Kressley after a hard charge forward from 6^th to 2^nd in the final 17 green flag laps.  Back at the trailer Craig noted “We had a good car and a good team effort tonight.  On that last lap was we ran out of real estate with lapped cars and when Brett went low we went high were he didn’t go.   The finish was so close it was just a blur.  We’ll not happy with 2^nd but we’ll take it.  The moisture from the early afternoon storm made the heats difficult which ended up with a real tough invert tonight.  We took a lot of sheet metal damage early but was able to keep air in the tires and get to a 2^nd place.”

Brett Kressley leads the point standings with five wins and one 2^nd place finish in 10 starts but Craig Von Dohren has kept pace every week with five runner up finishes and one win keeping Kressley points lead to less than 100 points.  There are 10 weeks in the books with 11 point races remaining.

Jeff Strunk finished 3^rd from a 14^th starting position to return to the top 5 after two weeks of back of the pack finishes due to bad luck and getting involved in early tangles.   Strunk still sits in 4^th place in the point standings with consistent top 5 and top 10 finishes except for the two weeks he was involved in early wrecks.

Jared Umbenhauer finished 4^th from a 26^th starting position and continued his string of top 5 and top 10 finishes.  Now for the rest of the story.  In the heat race Jared was moving forward toward an invert position when he got collected from behind and ended up with two left side flats which relegated him to the pits and a DNF for the heat race.  In the consolation Jared was able keep air in his tires this time and move to a 3^rd place finish from a 6^th starting position putting him in the 26^th starting position in the feature.  In the feature Jared was involved in the first wreck with no major damage and from there he was able to move forward to a 4^th place finish.  Back at the trailer Jared reflected “In the feature we started 26^th and I had to get going and couldn’t waste any time if I wanted to stay with the points leaders.  I got involved in the first wreck but did not have any bad damage.  Then it was game on after that.  I was driving with zero patience and had to pick a car off every lap or two if I wanted to make it to the front.”

Mike Maresca made an unplanned visit to Grandview and finished 5^th from a 25^th starting position in the Kevin Hirthler 117mm backup car.  Mike noted “I was heading to Delmar to run Garry Simpson’s car and was in Philadelphia area when they rained out so I called Kevin and he let me run his backup car.  Kevin is one of the most generous people in racing.  His whole family helped me all day get the car ready and I was very happy I was able to get them a top 5 tonight.  I didn’t push the issue in the heat or consoli since Kevin is racing this car on Tuesday and wanted to make sure he got it back without a scratch.”

It looked like that both of Kevin Hirthler’s 117 entries were going to be in the top 10 with Kevin in 5^th and Mike right behind him in 7^th but Kevin felt a vibration in the 117 and pulled off on lap 21 to prevent further damage and race another day.  Postrace Kevin commented “I developed a vibration in the driveline and pulled in.  It’s a crying shame we couldn’t get both 117’s in the top 5 and that would had been great but just not worth it the risk of blowing something apart on one of these cars.  Mike called me when Delaware rained out and I told him if he can get to my house to help finish the second car we could run it tonight.  He did a great job and drove his ass off and kept the car straight.”

The top five cars all had amazing runs with Kressley from 16^th to 1^st; Von Dohren 15^th to 2^nd; Strunk 14^th to 3^rd; Umbenhauer 26^th to 4^th and Maresca 25^th to 5^th.   Matter of fact the top 10 in total moved forward 130 positions which is an average of +13 positions for each of the top 10 finishers and the most top ten forward movement of the season.

 Duane Howard finished 6^th from a 19^th starting position.  With the 5 cautions before lap 3 Howard was able to move into 2^nd by lap 10 but the setup faded a bit and during the final 17 laps of green flag racing and the 15g fell back to a 6^th place finish.

Doug Manmiller continues his consistency finishes in the top 5/10 with a 7^th place finish from a 21^st starting position.  Doug just missed qualifying from the heat by one position but then was able to qualify by winning his last chance consolation.

Ryan Grim continued with his heat race struggles but he also continued with his last chance consolation wins and strong back to front runs in the features.  Ryan finished 8^th from a 22^nd starting position and recorded his 5^th strong back to front feature run in a row.  Back at the trailer Ryan stated “We changed some stuff this week and I think we are moving in on the heat race setup but we had what appears to be a carburetor issue in the heat this week.  In the feature we had a pretty good run; but just wish we didn’t get that flat early on.  I definitely think we could have finished even better if we didn’t have the lap 1 flat.”

Dylan Swinehart posted a 9^th place finish which gives him two top ten finishes in a row for the first time this season.  Dylan commented “Well we finally figured out our problem so it was a great now for us.  The car was way too tight to be move any further up front and I was struggling to turn the car.  But after weeks of frustration we finally got the car hooked up this season.”

Jack Butler got involved in a lap 1 incident and had to go to the back of the field but was able to move back through the field to a 10^th place finish.  Postrace at the trailer Jack noted “We got pushed into the first lap one wreck from behind.  We went to the pits on the hook and changed a right rear flat and check the front end.  We came back out in 26^th place and the car was a little tight but was running good on both the top and the bottom. We had a really good bounce back tonight with a 10^th place finish.”

Darrin Schuler had two strong top 5 runs in the past two weeks only to get knocked out with ten laps to go from rear contact and resulting tangles and spins.  This week Darrin led the first 8 laps but his setup faded a bit but he was still able to finish a season best 11^th.   Postrace Darrin noted “Too many restarts early on for us; but the car was still very good in the first half.  As the track started to change it started getting too tight on entry in turn 1 which caused us to lose some spots late in the race.  All and in that was way better than ending the night on the hook.”

Brad Grim qualified & handicapped from his heat race this week after two weeks of his only DNQ’s of the season.  Brad got through the first 4 yellows in the feature but got caught up in the 5^th one and received heavy sheet metal damage and had to make a trip to the pits.  He returned to the rear of the field and finished in 13^th place.

Brad Arnold continued a streak of qualifying for 9 straight features since a DNQ on opening day.  In the last chance consolation Brad was able to get the last spot in the field after battling with Nate Brinker and Craig Whitmoyer for 10 laps.  In the feature Brad finished 14^th after starting 28^th and tied his best finish of the season.  

Tuesday, June 29th offers another exciting Thunder on the Hill Series featuring the Pennsylvania 410 Sprint Speedweek with the Hodnett Cup paying $10,000 to win plus 358 Modifieds. Duane Howard, Brett Kressley and possibly a sprint car racer or two will be part of the 5 p.m. Meet and Greet.

Sportsman will be in the spotlight on Saturday, July 3rd, when the annual Firecracker 40 is presented with a large field of T.P.Truck Equipment Sportsman expected to battle for the $2,000 first place money. The T.P. Trailers Modifieds will be the second part of the show. Adult admission is $22 while youngsters 6 thru 11 pay $10 Under 6 are admitted free. Action gets the green at 7:30 p.m.