Cole Stangle Clicks to First Win at Grandview Speedway & Pit Notes

Another challenging weather night at Grandview in August but for the second week in a row Grandview completed their program in less than three hours despite a drizzle and approaching weather front.  The track prep was removed from the schedule which permitted all heats, consolations and features to be completed before the rain arrived.

Grandview completed their 17^th points event of the season with Craig Von Dohren extending his lead over Brett Kressley by another 20 position points to approximately 161 points while Kenny Gilmore added another 50 points to increase his lead over Dylan Hoch to approximately 122 points.  There are two more points races before the 2021 points champions are crowned.

The sportsman feature saw Cole Stangle come out on top of a three car duel with Kenny Bock and Bryant Rhoads and then running away from the field to take his first Grandview sportsman checkered flag.

The sportsman feature was lead to green by Colton Perry who lead the first two laps with Bryan Rhoads taking charging into the lead until lap 9 when Kenny Bock made a top side pass with his 602 crate for the lead at lap 10 but it didn’t last long as Cole Stangle entered the duel and passed both Bock & Rhoads to the take the lead on lap 13 and from their Stangle took command of the race and drove into his first Grandview victory lane with over a 4 second margin of victory.

The top ten was rounded out by Kenny Bock, Bryan Rhoads, Steve Young, Kyle Lilick, Kyle Smith, Jimmy Leiby, Logan Bauman, Ryan Beltz and Kenny Gilmore in 10^th place.

The heat races were won by Cody Manmiller, Colton Perry and Hunter Iatalese.  The last chance consolation was won by Matt Yoder is his second start in the sportsman division.

Sportsman Feature (25-laps):

1. Cole Stangle, 2. Kenny Bock, 3. Bryan Rhoads, 4. Steve Young, 5. Kyle Lilick, 6. Kyle Smith, 7. Jimmy Leiby, 8. Logan Bauman, 9. Ryan Beltz, 10. Kenny Gilmore, 11. Colton Perry, 12. Mike Stofflet, 13. Dakota Kohler, 14. Brian Hirthler, 15. Dylan Hoch, 16. Matt Clay, 17. Mark Kemmerer (provisional), 18. Adrianna Delliponti, 19. Hunter Iatalese, 20. Cody Manmiller, 21. Matt Yoder, 22. Tyler James, 23. Jesse Landis, 24. Nathan Mohr (provisional), 25. Decker Swinehart, 26. Chris Esposito.

 DNQ: B.J. Joly, Zach Steffy, Mark Gaugler, Joey Vaccaro, Mike Schneck

Sportsman Pit Notes

Cole Stangle took the win from his 9^th starting position.  Postrace Cole commented “This week we started out well; I drove well; Dad and the guys set the car up right and everything clicked.  When we roll the car out it was lights out quick.  When everything is clicking we are going to do pretty good as long as we can avoid dumb luck like we did last night.  The night started with the heat which can be a struggle since the track is usually heavy and single lane around the bottom.  You get what you get in the heats.  In our heat tonight I got the car in a handicap position and then just chilled out since we handicap the same for position 1 to 5.  That put us in 9th our best possible spot for the feature which is where we wanted to be.  We watched the mods and they were catfishing the bottom and we setup for the bottom.”

Cole continued “My racing roots were in New York were where tracks are always slick and rubbered up.  The track tonight was just like what I grew up on so I was ready the minute we saw the track taking rubber.  I tried the top but it wasn’t there last night so I moved back to the bottom.  The car worked best on the bottom in 1 & 2 and in the middle in 3 & 4.  That was a slick move for the lead and not exactly sure what I did there but essentially started with moving into the middle.  Once we got into clean air I was smooth, fast and comfortable even through the lapped traffic.  It’s a big relief to get this one done at Grandview and finally show what we can do.  I can do this again.”

Kenny Bock finished 2^nd from his 8^th starting position and he is hoping this is the beginning of his return to the consistent top 5 & 10 finishes.  With a recent 6^th and tonight’s 2^nd; Kenny has moved from 15^th to 9^th in the points and is looking to finish in the top 10 with only two weeks of racing remaining.  Back at the trailer Kenny commented “It was a weird night in the feature with a mist and a tacky black track.  I could smell the rubber and see it on my tear offs during the feature.    We went with a different setup and it worked for us.  I got a couple of spots on the starts and on restarts too.  We had a really good night and just need to get the car a little better late in the race.  I liked being up top in a free lane and was glad to be out of jamming and banging down in the bottom.  I was lucky to be on the top lane all night on restarts.  Once Cole got by me; I knew he was gone because he had perfect conditions.  I was able to get 2^nd back from Brian when he tangled a bit with a lapped car.  I was able to get under them both but I went right back to the top for the final laps.  If we can keep it together we are usually pretty fast.”   

Bryan Rhodes finished 3^rd and finally returned to the podium after twelve weeks of climbing back from the effects of a major crash.  Bryan reflected “We went through 6 or 8 weeks of used parts going bad and ended up just replacing everything part by part.  We got some assistance from Brian Hirthler that helped us get through our troubles and lead to our 3^rd tonight.  Our big difference maker tonight was brand new torsion bars and calibers and brakes.”

Bryan continued “We were good in the heat but due to the tire shortage were running used tires and the tires started to slip so we fell to 3^rd but still handicapped.  In the feature we added some new tires and moved the rear.  Our new tire was a 50 and we found out that cautions are tough on 50’s since they take several laps to heat back up and start working well again.  We lead first 8 laps but then the restarts got us with the 50 tires cooling off and sealing over.  A lapped car slide up and we made contact which caused us to fall back to 3^rd.  We just didn’t have enough laps to run back up into 2^nd but we definitely had the car to do it if we had the laps.  This is our second 3^rd of the season and we are hoping it doesn’t take 13 weeks this time to get another one.”   

Kyle Lilick finished 5^th from his 14^th starting position.  Kyle noted “We made some good moves early only to get stuck behind a car on a restart and we lost all we had gained.  The car was a little too free to squeeze around people but we managed to work back to a 5^th place finish.  Track wasn’t awful but the top could have used some work.”

Kyle Smith finished 6^th from a 12^th place starting position despite a wreck and body damage in the heat race.  Kyle commented “In the heat we got caught up in a wreck which bent the axle and steering rod but we were lucky and still able to get a handicap spot for the feature.  In the feature the top was decent for maybe 5-8 laps then it went away and was tough to go anywhere after that.”

Jimmy Leiby finished 7^th from an 11^th starting positon.  Back at the trailer Jimmy stated “In the heat we handicapped with a 5^th place finish from an 8^th start.  In the feature our RR tire gave up and was down to nothing.  We were washing out but able to hold on until the end.  We were really happy to stay close to Lilick and Smith since we were coming off of my first flip ever and had to replace the front axle and left rear tube during the week but the car worked as good as ever.

After the flip last week; we had to fix my car and get the motor in the modified car for Thursday.  To say I was dazed and confused on Monday is an understatement and I really don’t know how I would do all this without my dad.  I definitely would have been lost this week without my dad.”

Jimmy continued “Driving a mod for the first time this Thursday gave me a total new perspective of just how much faster the modifieds are then the crates.  The modifieds are so fast it’s hard to do your tear offs.  I ran last in the modified heat and I was still out of breath.  The 10 lap heat and consolation changed how I use my head and foot to keep the car underneath me in the corners when I returned to the crate today.  The modified experience seemed to slow things down and make it easier to see the moves in the crate today.  I definitely feel I am a better crate driver from just 20 laps of modified drive time.”

Ryan Beltz finished 9^th from his 16^th starting position after heavy right side damage in his heat race.  Postrace Ryan noted “In the heat race I was trying to avoid the 97 who was spinning down the back stretch.  I nearly hit him straight on but missed and then got clipped by another car which destroyed the right side door, rub rails and mounts.  We managed to make the feature from the heat but didn’t make the handicap.” 

Ryan continued “I thought the feature track conditions were pretty good and we had the car setup almost perfect.  We started 16^th and were able to pass a lot of good cars in the first few laps and got up to 11^th.  Worked really hard to pass two more cars to get to 9^th and was happy with our finish.”

Kenny Gilmore finished 10^th from a 15^th starting position.  Back at the trailer Kenny noted “The mods laid rubber tonight and once the track takes rubber you know it’s going to be one fast lane that everyone is fighting to stay in.  The top really wasn’t an option since it was slick from the mist and if you already ran in the rubber your tires were shot so it’s best to just stay in the rubbered up bottom.  We went forward from 15^th to 10^th which is pretty good with the conditions we had tonight.  We used up two tires tonight but we didn’t bend up anything today.”

Brian Hirthler had a 14^th place finish in the feature.  Despite heavy damage in the heat race Brian was able to make the handicap.  Postrace Brian noted “Normally I’m pretty good at missing accidents; but that one came out of nowhere and was basically at top speed on straight away so not many options.  Car was too bent to fix at the track; so we fixed shocks and steering rods and ran the car with the body bent the rest of the night.  It was a tough track surface with limited visibility. Usually my success comes from picking my moments but with a bent car we weren’t good enough to eve get to that point.”

Next Saturday September 3^rd is a tripleheader with the ADRC Midgets, Modified and the Sportsman division with racing starting at 7:30 PM.