Grandview Modified Pit Notes 6/18/22 – Craig Von Dohren Claims Dramatic 4th Win Over Jeff Strunk

Polesitter Bobby Trapper led the first 16 laps of the three caution modified feature with a strong run until lap 17 when Jeff Strunk moved into the lead.  Strunk encountered heavy lapped traffic on lap 22 with Craig Von Dohren moved into second on lap 25.  After a fierce battle in heavy lapped traffic, Craig Von Dohren took the lead on lap 29 and went on to the take the win with a margin of victory of only .139 over Jeff Strunk at the checkered flag.   

Heat winners for the 37 car modified field were Brad Brightbill, Mark Kratz, Darrin Schueler, and Brett Gilmore.  Dylan Swinehart and Kyle Lillick won the last chance consolations.

 MODIFIED FEATURE FINISH (30 laps):

1.CRAIG VON DOHREN, 2. Jeff Strunk, 3. Duane Howard, 4. Brett Kressley, 5. Bobby Trapper Jr., 6. Tim Buckwalter, 7. Doug Manmiller, 8. Jared Umbenhauer, 9. Brad Grim, 10. Jordan Henn, 11. Brad Brightbill, 12. Brett Gilmore, 13. Cory Merkel, 14. Ryan Grim, 15. Kyle Lilick, 16. Mike Lisowski, 17. Craig Whitmoyer, 18. Michael Storms, 19. Mark Kratz, 20. Jesse Leiby, 21. Nate Brinker, 22. Justin Grim, 23. Brad Arnold, 24. Darrin Schuler, 25. Dylan Swinehart, 26. Kevin Graver Jr., 27. Bobby Gunther-Walsh, 28. John Willman, 29. Joe Funk, 30. Kevin Hirthler

DID NOT QUALIFY: Dan Waisempacher, Eric Biehn, Carrol Hine III, Steve Swinehart, Chris Gambler, Glenn Owens, Ron Haring Jr.

Grandview Modified Pit Notes 6/18/22

Craig Von Dohren entered heavy lapped traffic on lap 23 in 4^th place and worked his way through the traffic to take the lead from Jeff Strunk on lap 29 and hold out for one more lap to take his 7^th Grandview win of the season.  

In victory lane Craig stated : “I wasn’t sure what lap we were on, so I just kept going.  I saw Jeff show his nose and he was going for the win but then everyone started to slow down so figure we were on an extra lap somehow.   Duane had a left rear flat and the side by side lapped cars were holding Jeff up, so we got lucky and this one came to us a little bit.  Dealing with the side by side lapped traffic – it’s Grandview.”

Craig Von Dohren has won 7 out of the 10 races at Grandview this year.  Von Dohren won the Bruce Rogers memorial, and two Thunder on the Hill races this year. He is 3 for 3 in non-points modified wins.  He also has 4 wins in Saturday night NASCAR points races. He was second in one of the three points races he didn’t win and was leading with 2 laps to go in another when he had a flat.  He has been dangerously close to having a win total of 9 instead of 7 if not for some bad racing luck.

Jeff Strunk had finished 2^nd from his 12^th starting position.  Jeff took the lead on lap 17 and had a one second lead over Craig Von Dohren on lap 28. But then side by side lapped bottled Jeff up and Von Dohren went by Strunk who fell behind by 1.7 seconds on the final lap.  A 31^st lap was run since neither Strunk nor Von Dohren knew that the race was over.   

Back at the trailer Jeff commented “You never want to lose on the last lap, but I didn’t know it was the last lap.  Lapped cars were an issue, guys were not moving, and someone dragged some slop up from the bottom of  3 and 4 on supposedly the white flag lap and it got us tight which allowed Craig to make a heck of a run underneath us on the white flag lap, but they were saying that it was actually the checkered flag lap.  I don’t understand why everyone was still racing if it was the checkered flag lap.   This is a tough deal for our team to lose this way and to lead all those laps and not get the win.  If that slop didn’t get dragged up on track by lapped cars, I think we would have won no matter what lap was counted.”

Jeff has four 2^nd place finishes this year at Grandview and they all have been behind wins of  Craig Von Dohren.  The other weeks have been up and down with a 4^th, 12^th, 19^th, and 20^th with flat tire and tangle issues resulting in the higher finishes.

Duane Howard was back on the podium with a 3^rd place finish from 13^th starting position.  Duane had a top 5 going the prior week when the steering box broke and sent him up track toward the turn 4 wall and he ended up with a disappointing 14^th place.

Postrace Duane stated “It is very important to make the invert in the heat race every week.  In our last 4 weeks we have not made the invert.  It is so important to make the invert and start ahead of your competitors that are higher in points.  That was kind of odd seeing the checkered flag twice.  You think you are finished, but you are not finished.  I see that we are still racing so I continued to race.  We had a left rear tire going down which affected our outcome in the end.  It is shame we broke that steering box last week as we do have a very good racecar underneath me. We’ll just keep plugging away and chasing top five finishes and competing for wins.”  

Brett Kressley finished 4^th from his 18^th starting position.  After 3 cautions in the first 7 laps; the race went green for the next 23 laps to the checkered flag.   The top 8 separated from the rest of the pack and Kressley was back in 12^th and looked hopelessly behind.  By the end of the race Kressley had stormed the top side to a 4^th place finish passing the likes of Buckwalter and Manmiller in the final laps.

Brett Kressley commented “We had a real good initial start and then after one of the restarts a few laps in we got caught in a lane that was slowed up and we lost a lot of ground on the frontrunners, we just kept digging cause the car was really fast and we made up a lot of ground late in the final laps.”

The surprise of the night had to be Bobby Trapper who finished 5^th from the pole position Bobby hasn’t been seen in weekly racing since 2019 and this was only his 5^th outing of the season.

Bobby Trapper recalled “Definitely thrilled with the night overall. We made a few slight changes to the car since last week.  We worked out the bugs that kept us off the track two weeks ago.  We went to big diamond last Friday because I had a wedding to go to last Saturday.  We decided to keep the car the same and put a fresh tire on the right rear for the feature and that really seemed to help the car hook up.  I’m still getting comfortable and use to the car and that definitely hurt me the second half of race. Overall, we’re all happy with the progress we made last night.  I wouldn’t say it’s a major success or anything yet.  It was only one week and it’s a lot different to start up front and stay there compared to drive through the field like those guys do, but it was a great start for us.  I didn’t think much of the extra lap deal, just rode around slow knowing how it usually goes.  In retrospect I probably should have stayed in race mode a bit more since I didn’t know if they were going to count that last lap or not.  I believe Buckwalter drove around me during in the 31^st lap .  Our car is old and tethered without a doubt.  I still don’t think it feels quite right especially entering the corner and we are working towards getting something a bit fresher chassis wise put together, but for now the car has shown it’s good enough to be competitive at times when the driver is on point.”

Bobby continued “We updated our suspension to a left side pan hard and I’m still adjusting my driving style to this new suspension.  We have an old not so straight chassis and still fighting it to enter the corner better since it has a consistent push in turn 1.  We are very happy to have some solid results already this season and I for one will be very happy to not be starting on the pole next week while I continue to get more comfortable in the car again.”

Tim Buckwalter finished 6^th from his 14^th starting position and posted another consistent top 10 finish keeping him in 4^th place in the early season points standings.  Tim only finished out of the top ten was when the distributor cap cracked during the feature which caused the car to have no forward drive and resulted in a 14th place finish.

Doug Manmiller posted a 7^th place finish from his 16^th starting position.  Doug posted his first top ten of the season with his 7^th place which he adds to 6 top five finishes already this season as he holds down 3^rd place in the early season points standings.

Doug noted “We missed the setup a bit tonight and didn’t have a top 5 car tonight and it showed.  The driver wasn’t top five either tonight.”

Jared Umbenhauer finished 8^th from his 20^th starting position and has shown a return to consistent top ten finishes after a few off weeks of searching for the setup in his new car fir the first year car owner.  Jared has posted a 6^th and 8^th in the past two weeks from deep in the field starting positions and his recent consistency rocketed him from 19^th to 7^th in the early season points standings.

Jared stated “We are just struggling in the heats to make the handicap. In the feature we can get the car pretty good but it’s hard to come from 20th to win at Grandview.” 

Brad Grim posted his best finish of the season with a 9^th place from his 5^th starting position.  Brad has been as high as 2^nd in both of the past two weeks and is hoping he has turned the corner and found the consistent top five speed he has been looking for all season.

Back at the trailer Brad noted “We just happy with finishing the race for only the second time this season.  We were good last week and running in 2^nd but got turned and didn’t finish.  We ran in 2^nd again this week but got tight and fell back to a 9^th place finish.  We are very close to being were we want to be and just a few adjustments away.  We had a lot of bad luck early in the season with a broken rear, transmission, and motor so far this season. We finally have a good base line and are hoping we can keep it going next week and be back up front again.”

Jorden Henn finished 10^th from a 6^th starting position posting back to back top ten finishes for the first time this season after a problem plagued start to his season.

Back at the trailer Jordan reflected “We lost our brakes on lap 7 and have finally worked the bugs out of the car as we have our consistent top ten car back for the past two weeks.  The track has been different every week, but we have been able to make adjustments and stay in the top ten for the past 2 weeks which is a huge confidence builder for us.”  

Cory Merkel finished 13^th from his 19^th starting position and showed solid progress in moving from back to front in the field and returned to his consistent mid pack finishes. Cory also continues to hold down the 10^th position in the early season points standings.  Cory noted “We are very happy with how our car is handling and that we are making progress every week.”

Brett Gilmore posted a 12^th place finish from his 4^th starting position and has been struggling with qualifying since his 3^rd place finish 3 weeks ago.  Brett commented “We are content with last night as the car was tight in the feature but really good in the heat race.  Got held up in the feature behind some cars but other than that it was a good night overall.    We now have a baseline to make adjustments to for next week and try to get back to a top five car.”

Michael Storms made his debut in Norm Hansell’s 357 and finished 18^th from his 27^th starting position in his first outing of the season.  Michael reflected “This is a huge learning experience, but Norm knows what I am as a driver and seems good with it.”

The T.P. Trailer NASCAR Modifieds and T.P. Truck Equipment NASCAR Sportsman will be in action on Saturday, June 25 starting at 7:30 pm. The program will include qualifying events for both divisions leading to the 30-lap T.P. Trailer Modified feature and the 25-lap T.P. Truck Equipment Sportsman main. In addition, the Outlaw Racing Series Vintage racers will be in action in a feature only program.