Ryan Godown Captures Last Lap Victory Over Mike Gular at Port Royal STSS South Region Season Opener

Three times was the charm for the Short Track Super Series as they finally were able to open their South Region Modified Points season after experiencing consecutive rainouts at Georgetown and Selinsgrove. Cool, cloudy, and breezy conditions greeted three division program which featured 49 STSS modifieds, 32 ULMS late models and 25 sprint cars.

Ryan Godown retook the lead on the white flag lap from Mike Gular to take the checkered flag for the STSS South region points opener at Port Royal Speedway and his second consecutive STSS win this season.

Mike Gular led the field to green and until Stewart Friesen charged to the lead on a lap 9 restart .  Friesen pulled away from the field until the caution came out on lap 15 and mechanical foes stopped the 44 on the track and ended his night early.  Ryan Godown inherited the lead on the restart with Mike Gular and Mike Mahaney in close pursuit.  Gular moved his 360 small block from the bottom to the middle and took the lead back on lap 26.  Gular was able to maintain the lead over Godown despite 4 late restart from lap 30 to 33 for flat tires.   On the final lap Godown made his last chance pay off on the back straight away and he re-took the lead from Gular to take the win.

In victory lane Godown noted “I don’t know this is just surreal and we are riding the wave. We didn’t pick so well in the heat race and think we picked the worst number in the pill, but we just kept plugging away.  We weren’t great in the feature and needed to be a little tighter yet. We couldn’t roll the middle like Mike could and he was better than us.  I kept getting closer to the wall and if I could get above the hole in turn 2, I would get a good run.  We got a heck of a run off of the fence on the last lap.  Hate to see it happen that way for Mike; he ran a great race and he was fighting hard.”

Postrace Gular stated “He throw a Hail Mary and got me. I didn’t really hit a bad lap and I actually thought I hit a pretty good lap.  He surprised the hell out of me to be honest.  All in all, a good run, and my best run here at Port Royal.  I can’t wait to get back here in October and hopefully do one spot better for some big money.”

The heat races were won by Mike Mahaney, Mike Gular, Danny Johnson, Ryan Godown and Stewart Friesen.  The last chance races were won by Alex Yankowski and Duane Howard.

STSS South Region Round No. 1 – Port Royal Feature Finish (40 laps):

Winner – RYAN GODOWN, 2. Mike Gular, 3. Michael Maresca, 4. Mat Williamson, 5. Matt Sheppard, 6.Mike Mahaney, 7. Anthony Perrego, 8. Danny Johnson, 9. Ryan Watt, 10. Matt Stangle, 11. Alex Yankowski, 12. Billy Pauch Jr., 13. Danny Bouc, 14. Jordan Watson, 15. Mike Trautschold, 16. Jared Umbenhauer, 17. Ronnie Johnson, 18. Dan Creeden, 19. J.R. Heffner, 20. Marshall Hurd, 21. Jeff Taylor, 22. Joseph Watson, 23. David Schilling, 24. Jessica Friesen, 25. Brandon Grosso, 26. H.J. Bunting, 27. Frank Cozze, 28. Stewart Friesen, 29. Duane Howard, 30. Jimmy Horton, 31. Kevin Hirthler, 32. David Van Horn.

Did Not Qualify: Sammy Martz, Andy Bachetti, Brad Trice, Ryan Krachun, Brett Tonkin, Sean Metz, Ryan Riddle, John Willman, Matt Smith, Jake Dgien, Rick Laubach, Joe Judge, Chris Curtis, Mark Frankhouser, Brett Haas, Dominick Buffalino, Jim Britt.

Next up for the Short Track Super Series is round 2 of the $25,000 Elite Series at Orange County Fairgrounds Speedway on April 2^nd.