Grandview Sportsman Pit Notes 8/13/22 – Steve Young Wins Sportsman feature in 7 Minutes      

Polesitter Steve Young led the caution free 25 lap feature green to checkered and took the his first Sportsman win of the season in 7 minutes and 2 seconds with a margin of victory of 2.26 seconds over 2^nd place Dylan Hoch from his 13^th position.

Heat winners for the field of 32 sportsman were Zane Roth, Steve Young, and Mike Myers.  Jimmy Leiby won the last chance consolation.

SPORTSMAN FEATURE FINISH (25 laps):

1.STEVE YOUNG, 2. Dylan Hoch, 3. Mike Myers, 4. Brian Hirthler, 5. Hunter Iatalese, 6. Ryan Graver, 7. Zane Roth, 8. Matt Clay, 9. Lex Shive, 10. Nathan Horn, 11. Mike Schneck Jr., 12. Nathan Mohr, 13. Joey Vaccaro, 14. Adrianna Delliponte, 15. Kyle Smith, 16. Jesse Landis, 17. Decker Swinehart, 18. Logan Bauman, 19. Kenny Bock, 20. Jimmy Leiby, 21. Parker Guldin, 22. Dakota Kohler, 23. Zach Steffy, 24. Kyle Hartzell, 25. Mark Kemmerer

DID NOT QUALIFY: Jesse Hirthler, Bryan Rhoads, Mark Mohr, Michael Burrows, Mike Stofflet, Cody Manmiller, Nicholas Hamm, Cody Manmiller

GRANDVIEW SPORTSMAN PIT NOTES – 8/13/22

Steve Young finished 1^st from his pole starting position to take his first win of the season in a nonstop green to checkered race that was completed in 7 minutes.  Steve started on the pole last week and finished 5^th and  he also won this same race 3 years ago.

In victory lane Steve reflected “I should have gone to the top last week and this would have been two in a row.  I had very little traffic and it was just nonstop racing .  I just ran my line and didn’t see any nose or any other cars and here we are back in victory lane three years later to the day.”

Back at the trailer Steve noted “I just hit my marks and pushed the car when the track got black.  I followed the black on the track with the back of the car.”

Dylan Hoch finished 2^nd from his 14^th starting position to end a streak of three subpar finishes due to being collected in tangles.  But this week Dylan and everyone else had no worries about tangles and the yellow flag stayed in the starter’s stand as the feature went nonstop green to checkered without a caution for the first time this season.  Despite only 7 minutes of racing time Dylan was still able to race from 14^th to 2^nd and go +12 before the checkered flag flew.  

Dylan stated “We had a good night last night.  Finally had some luck fall our way and we didn’t get caught up in any accidents this week.  Probably could have used a caution to bunch the field up.  I think if I had another 5 laps it would have  been a different outcome but 14^th to 2^nd in a seven minute feature is outstanding and I can’t complain.  Track was good for everybody early but once it started to slick off, we started moving forward one car by one car.”

Mike Myers finished 3^rd from his 2^nd starting position and posted his best finish of the season and first top five finish of the season.  Mike stated “We got the car back together after a crash a few weeks ago and found some things that improved the slick track setup.  I was pretty good in the feature but with one lap to go couldn’t hold the bottom and Hoch got by me for 2^nd.  All in all a good night.”

Brian Hirthler finished 4^th from his 17^th starting position and still moved forward 13 positions despite a 7 minute non-stop green to checkered feature without any caution flags.

Brian reflected “Heat race was tough this week, it seemed like every line I picked was boxed in or blocked for most of the race, but we still picked up the 6th spot to transfer to feature.”

“Feature time I wasn’t sure what track would do and I never saw that type of prep before so we made a few changes we thought would work and rolled off 17th starting position.  It took the first 5 laps or so to feel out the track, and then I found a few passing lanes that would work and started to maneuver through traffic.  The good part about staying green for a whole race is the cars get spread out and you don’t get trapped behind anyone running side by side.  The downside is that the front runners have time to stretch their lead and takes longer to catch them at the end.  Track conditions were pretty good considering the ending of the modified feature seemed to go single file.  I was able to glance at the score board on lap 21 to see what lap it was on.  A lap or two later I saw my number pop up at the bottom which means I was 5^th, and I was able to make a last lap pass for 4th.  In a non-stop race, you really have no idea where you are in the running order. If you are lucky, you will be able to take a few peeks at the board near the end of the race to know how much time is left.  From where I was, I didn’t even know who was leading.”

Hunter Iatalese finished 5^th from his 5^th starting position and posted his second top 5 finish of the season.

Ryan Graver finished 6^th from his 10^th starting position.  Ryan stated “We went into this week switching from coils back to torsion bars, so we really didn’t know what to expect or what we needed to do to the car since this was my first time on bars. We had a solid start to the night by qualifying right through the heat race and making the handicap.”

“Come feature time I expected the bottom to be really fast at the start since they had worked the track before the feature.  After getting around one or two cars off the start I moved to the bottom and found out it was not the lane to be in which really killed us.  3 or 4 cars got around me on the top before I could finally move up myself.  I felt like I worked around several cars pretty well with some nice passes but there were definitely a couple times where I had to take a few laps and just be patient and wait for the right opportunity to get around a few people which allows the front runners to make some space on me.  Having a race with no cautions definitely hurt us especially in situations like tonight.  We had a car that really worked all the way around the track on either the top or bottom.  I felt the track was top heavy but did allow for passing on top and the bottom which I think is one of my personal favorite types of tracks to run.  All in all, I definitely think we made the right decisions and changes coming into this week and we are hoping to try and turn the rest of this season around after many weeks of struggling to find our pace.”

Zane Roth finished 7^th from his 3^rd starting position.  Zane has bookended a 3rd and 7^th around a DNQ in the past three outings and is showing some recent top ten consistency.  Zane recalled ”we started the night off strong winning my heat race and I felt really confident going into the feature.  The track was real racy and the car felt good once I moved to the top.  We were riding in 5th with about 10 laps to go and I started to feel something change in the handling of the car.  I dropped back to finish 7^th and later found I had a punctured right rear which was down to 5 pounds of air.  With tire going flat, I was very fortunate that the race ran non-stop otherwise I probably would have been a DNF.  It was great to finally run a nonstop feature for the fans.  We have learned from every lap this season and continue to make adjustments and see positive results.” 

Mat Clay finished 8^th from a 6^th starting position and posted his third 6^th place finish in his 8 starts this season.  Matt noted “Track went from wet to dry but this was a different type of racetrack without any time to adjust the pan hard bar.  The track has been different every night and we felt fast with a new gear tonight.  Lap 20 felt like lap 48.  We changed gears for this race and think we finally got the gearing where we want it to be going forward.”

Lex Shive finished 9^th from an 11^th starting position.  Lex stated “we made some different adjustments this week in hot laps and was a bit too free.  The track crew cut 2/3 of the track and watered the bottom.  After letting things settle out in first lap, we simply went where they were not and filled in the holes in the non-stop feature.  I found the top was better for me and decided to stay up there.  Then the track went hammer down and the cars started to spread out single file to the finish.”

Nat Horn finished 10^th from his 4^th starting position.  Nat stated “we went straight green which was working in my favor once I got into a rhythm. The track finally had some decent prep before the feature and produced a great track that we could race on instead of fighting for the bottom of the track like most nights recently.  It shows that the sportsman can put on a good show when the track crew gives us an actual track to race on, lately we are driving over each other fighting for the bottom on a crappy racing surface.  Our car was hooked up on Saturday and was fast on the top, but we just ended up having a used right front tire which made me super tight halfway through the race after a perfect first half of the race. All in all, it was an ok night without a single caution in my heat or feature along with good clean racing.”

Mike Schneck finished 11^th from his 12^th starting position.  Mike reflected “I think this may have tied my best heat race finish of all time with a 3^rd from a 7^th starting position without any banging around and I grabbed two spots on a restart.”

“I made a small change after seeing where the track was going, and I think that helped a lot. The feature started good as I got up to 7th from 12th but then I got stuck behind a car on the top and got freight trained  by cars on the bottom and fell back to 11th.  Just seems I need to figure out the last 1/4 of the race which is where I’m struggling right now. The cautions are good and bad. I feel like I could have used one about halfway.  I was glad that after a longer than usual modified race the track still went out and cut the track and gave us a good track surface to race on.  When I check the results, it seems a lot of good guys close to me in points stayed in the back of the field due to the 7 minute non-stop feature. I go race to race every week and see how the night goes, but this close to the end of the season the points race is always in the back of my mind.”

A 7 minute non-stop feature makes passing and back to front runs very difficult, but the top two in the points chase showed why they are there atop of the point standings.  Points leader Brian Hirthler finished 4^th from a 17^th starting spot while Dylan Hoch finished 2^nd from 14^th in a 7 minute non-stop feature.  

Ryan Graver also moved forward a solid +4 positions from 10^th to 6^th in the nonstop caution less feature.

The battle for 5^th in the points turned to Mike Schneck’s favor as he moved into 5^th with an 11^th place finish while Parker Guldin & Dakota Kohler couldn’t get out of the back of the field and Cody Manmiller had a frustrating 1^st lap rollover that bent the car and ended his night as a DNQ.

The crates have 8 wins over the sportsman motors who have 5 wins.  The crate winners were Parker Guldin, Cody Manmiller, Dylan Hock, Kenny Bock, Decker Swinehart (2), Keith Brightbill, and Steve Young.  The sportsman winners were Brian Hirthler (4) and Lex Shive.   This week 18 crates went up against 13B sportsman motors in the 31 car field.

The next event on the Grandview Speedway schedule is next Saturday, August 20, featuring the T.P. Trailer NASCAR Modifieds and the T.P. Truck Equipment NASCAR Sportsman in another NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Racing Series double-header starting at 7:30 pm.

Pit gates will open at 4 pm. with grandstand gates opening at 5:30 pm. warm-ups will be starting at 6:30 pm. Adult grandstand admission is $18, while children ages 5 and under are admitted free of charge.