Grandview Sportsman Pit Notes 8/16/25 – Parker Guldin Dominates on his way to First Sportsman Win of the Season

Parker Guldin led from green to checkered and through five cautions to take his first win of the season by nearly 3 seconds over Jesse Landis in 2^nd place.

Heat race winners for the 40 car sportsman field were Jason Graber, Alex Bartorillo, Parker Guldin and Nathan Horn.

Consolation races were won by Addison Meitzler and Brett Gilmore.

SPORTSMAN FEATURE FINISH (25 laps): 1. PARKER GULDIN(2), 2. Jesse Landis (13), 3. Alex Bartorillo (3), 4. Mark Mohr (7), 5. TJ Mayberry (15), 6. Mike Schneck Jr. (23), 7. Brett Grim (10), 8. Addison Meitzler (21), 9. Brett Gilmore (22), 10. Colin Cox (19), 11. Kenny Gilmore (17),12. Decker Swinehart (12), 13. Joey Vaccaro (11), 14. Mike Stofflet (26), 15. Brayden Shelton (5), 16. BJ Jolly III (4), 17. Kaitlyn Bailey (24), 18. Nathan Mohr (14), 19. Shannon Slaughter (8), 20. Gavyn Krupp (25), 21. Dylan Swinehart (16), 22. Taylor Kramer (20), 23. Jason Graber (1), 24. Nate Horn (9), 25. Zach Steffey (6), 26. Teague Miller (18)

DID NOT QUALIFY: Lawson Szerencits, Mark Gaugler, John McGeoy, Steve Young, Mark Behm, Tom Miller Sr., Kyle Hartzell, Ebby Ridge, Brad Brightbill, Xavier Sprague, Troy Conrad, Chase Gular, Colton Perry, Dylan Cappel, Stephen Laubach

HARD CHARGER: Mike Schneck Jr. +17

SPORTSMAN PIT NOTES  – 8/16/25

Parker Guldin finished 1^st from his 2^nd starting position to post his 2^nd top five/ten and turned his season completely around in one swing.

In victory lane Parker reflected “We haven’t won since April of 2022.  This year we have been through two motors and countless parts and pieces.  Billy Pauch said last week ‘This place can chew you up’ and he’s right.  I’ve been very hard on myself this year.

“I knew Jesse was right there in second and he loves the top, but I was most comfortable on the bottom so choose it for the five restarts.  The bottom took rubber which helped me hold off Jesse for the win.”

Back at the trailer Parker stated “Looking back at the season thus far, it’s been incredibly frustrating to only have 1-2 good finishes this season given the car we had every week. That’s a big deal because I’m not hooked up with a shock guy/company like most cars if not the whole pits.  Also, we do  own or have ever used a dyno/smasher.  So, when you see me out there that’s strictly a one of one idea on setup from me that I thought of and decided to try.  Almost every time I hit the track, the car is outstanding. In return, I’ve been chewed up and spit out more times than I’d like to remember, whether it’s some sort of stupid part failure or another competitor crashing and smashing our chance to qualify away.  Add that to swapping motors 3 times this year which the time and cost was really making me question my racing career going forward.  I’m forever thankful to our friends, the Bocks, for lending me a motor after mine blew up. That’s a massive favor to ask of anyone and they are an awesome family. “

 Looking at Saturday night, it was an incredible night for us. Started out the night being quick time in warmups out of 41 cars” The heat gave me no struggles starting first and then the feature was fantastic. All night long the car and even I seemed to be perfect. I would’ve liked more of a top for a little longer other than the first 5-10 laps with the track, but I applied the knowledge Gilmore’s taught me years back and found the catfish lane early on.”

“ When I saw Jesse Landis on that late restart, I was thinking that there had to be a decent top lane because there’s only two people I’ve seen run like animals on the top and that’s Ryan Graver and Jesse Landis.  It had me guessing if I should go back up top or stay to the bottom but being out front like that for just about the whole race, you never know how fast you really are.”

“Even though I started on the front row, I’m extremely happy with our win and sweep of the night. I needed that win so badly, I can’t put into words everything that’s been poured into racing this year and last year as well while staying balanced with everything else in our lives. This is all fantastic, but now to repeat this dominance will be the hard part so let the work begin.”

Jesse Landis finished 2^nd from his 13^th starting position.  Early in the season Jesse had five consecutive weeks with top 5/10 finishes including two wins in three weeks.  His last five weeks have been a bit of a slump with a best of 14^th and a DQ last week.

Jesse commented “Started off the year with a really good car on the heavier track. Once the summer warm weather came, I felt like I lost the handle a bit. I was kind of reluctant to change much because of the speed the car had at the beginning of the season.  But after 5 lackluster weeks I decided to make some changes in the set up and they seem to be in right direction. The car felt much better in the heat race, and I was able to go 7th to 3rd which put us in the handicap.”

“ Started 13^th in the feature and was able be in the right lanes at the right time   and after the first few cautions was up to 4th.  I was able to get a good restart,  find an open lane to the top, and able to move from 4th to 2nd in a lap.  The final restart with Parker on lap 8, I was able to stay with him for a few laps but then the top got very difficult to run. I settled to the bottom for the last 10 laps.  Parker looked like he had to best car of the night and well deserved win for him.”

Alex Bartorillo finished 3^rd from his 3rd starting position.  After a late start to his season Alex has now posted a 2^nd, 3^rd and 8^th in his last four races.

Alex noted “We had to skip hot laps since we were still fixing damage from a road trip to Big Diamond on Friday night. We had a lot of body damage and my brakes somehow moved. “

“We had car ready for the heat which we won from the front row.  In the feature started 3^rd but fell back to 4th hit and rode around the top and got back to third.  My restarts were alright but I’m trying to improve my restarts each week. I got very lucky, just decided to go low and then there was a wreck right where I just was.  It was a fun night and the car was straight which was way better than last night.”

Mark Mohr finished 4^th from his 7^th starting position posting his best finish of the season.

Mark reflected “Finally felt good to put a together a complete night with a solid result in the feature.  I was beginning to feel like every week luck hasn’t been going our way, and I always find my way into other people’s wrecks, or we just struggle finding the right the feature setup. We changed a lot of stuff this week in the shop and felt like we are finally headed in the right direction. We will adjust a little more and see what next week has for us.”

“We started 7th in feature and by lap 7 we were in 2^nd and car was really hooked up in the moisture on the bottom but once the track rubbered up, we lost 2 positions back to 4^th.   Still not a bad night for us, hopefully we can build off of this and get a few positions better next week.”

TJ Mayberry finished 5^th from his 15^th starting spot and posted his 5^th top 5/10 finish of the season which has landed TJ a solid 5^th in the sportsmen championship points.

TJ commented “The last few weeks we’ve been trying some different things, and it seemed to hurt us in the heats.  This week we decided to go back to what we knew worked.  Felt solid in hot laps. Starting 8th in the first heat I knew I had to hit my marks and take advantage of opportunities. Luckily there were a few mishaps that we were able to avoid, and I made the invert finishing 3rd.”

“For the feature we were waiting to see if they were going to do any track prep or not. They decided not to touch the track, so I figured the bottom was going to be the preferred lane.  Car felt good from the start and picked off cars on the bottom.  After a few cautions I was already in 5th on lap 8.  Unfortunately, after the last restart everyone kind of strung out and I couldn’t gain on 4th.  I think everybody was in the same boat with the track conditions. Overall, we were very happy with the top 5.

Mikey Schneck finished 6^th from his 23^rd starting position.  Mikey has been consistent with 8 top ten finishes and qualifying every week and currently sits 2^nd in the sportsmen championship points at both Grandview and Big Diamond.  Very few cars run two different tracks weekly let alone are 2^nd in the points at both tracks.

Mikey “Last week I got shuffled to the outside while this week I started on bottom and made some quick passes.  I was finally not in the first heat after 3 weeks in a row running first heat.  So, this week the heat went better I made it up to 6th and just ran out of time with our heat not having any cautions. That put me starting 2nd in the consolation.  Car was fast in consolation just usually not much passing in those and went to the top after around 4 laps.

“The feature went good from the start, and I didn’t get boxed in this week.  I missed all the incidents and made a lot of passes to get up to 12th on one caution, then to 8th with 7 to go.  Finished 6^th with the hard charger and knocking on the door of 5^th.  The car felt really good from the start of the feature, and I didn’t have any tire wear even with no track prep before the feature.”

Next up on Saturday, August 23 will be a two-division program of Modified and Sportsman with hot laps at 6:15 and racing at 7:30 pm.