Devon Borden held firm at the end of a long and challenging race to come out on top and claim victory on a night to benefit St. Jude’s Childhood Cancer Research, and three divisions over the threat of rain, hail and more inclement weather at Port Royal Speedway.
Lap traffic came into play with 12 laps to go and within three laps Logan Wagner was all over the tail tank of TJ Stutts. The five-time defending champion made his move with nine laps to go. Using a slider in Turns 1 and 2, Wagner took the top spot and started to race away.
Wagner’s reign on top came to an end four laps later as he came to a slow on the frontstretch while leading. For the second time of the night, Stutts inherited the lead, but this time he had a hungry Devon Borden and Justin Whittall behind him.
Whittall, who started 15th on the grid, slipped by Borden for the runner-up spot on the restart. However, one lap later Borden regained the spot. It only took one more lap for Borden to grab the top spot and form there the Washington native went untouched for his second victory of the season.
Dylan Cisney earned the $500 hard charger award after charging from 22nd to sixth, while Austin Bishop, Ryan Taylor, Kody Lehman and Tyler Bear rounded out the top 10. Heimbach, who was credited with 19th, earned the $1,000 Warrior Award via random draw.
After finishing third three times this season, Rick Eckert broke through with his first win of the 2023 season in super late model. The win was worth $4,000 and moved Eckert into a four-way tie for 19th on the all-time win list at the Speedway with 14 victories.
Drew Young broke Logan Spahr’s undefeated streak in 2023 to score his first career PA Sprint Series 305 sprint car victory.
Port wasn’t the only track running against mother nature as things got pretty wild at Lincoln Speedway where Freddie Rahmer and the Eichelberger Team have the red No. 8 dialed in as they won their fifth feature of the season in the pigeon hills on Saturday night. Rahmer won the rain-shortened Steve Smith tribute race taking home the $10,119 prize. Danny Dietrich was closing in on Rahmer on the final lap but got upside down in turn 2, putting an end to what was bound to be an exciting finish.
While the field sat on the track waiting for the accident to be cleared, the rain track officials had been trying to beat all night started to fall. The race was checkered on Lap 34 with Freddie Rahmer winning the $10,119 Steve Smith tribute race. Rahmer was declared the winner despite having spun in Turn 4 while stopping for the red since he was not involved in the incident that brought out the flag which is standard operating procedure. Haas was second and Norris was third.
On Saturday, Lincoln Speedway is back in action with the Elijah Hawkins Memorial paying $7,000 to win for the 410 sprints featuring the PA Speedweek format. The 358 sprints will also be on the card. Racing starts at 7 p.m. with pit gates opening at 4:30 p.m. and grandstand gates opening at 5 p.m.
Clinton County Raceway’s third-year driver Matt Tebbs of Cogan Station has come close on several occasions to win his first career victory in the Race Saver sprint cars. On Friday night, he charged from the 15th starting postion and took the lead in the final four laps for the win.
Brandon Moser was a repeat winner in the pro stocks, Jeffrey Weaver remains undefeated in the 270 micros and Kyler Stahl won his first four-cylinder main event. Clinton County Speedway returns with racing action Friday with the opening night of the Appalachian Mountain super late model speedweek. The super late model speedweek features eight nights of racing at seven speedways. Clinton County Speedway hosts the series opening night which is expected to draw the best super late model drivers from the northeast for the $4,000 to win event.
In other action the warmest weather of the season thus far welcomed fans and race teams back to Hummingbird Speedway on Saturday for the fourth night of racing. Four drivers visited victory lane for the first time this season. Among those drivers were Mike Anderson (pure stocks), Jim Bloom (pro stocks), Shawn Hadden (four cylinders) and Bob McMillen (economods).
Anderson’s win was in just his second start of the year in a new car. He also broke the pure stock track record in the feature with a time of 16.638 seconds at 72.123 mph. Two drivers collected their second wins of the year including Nick Erskine (semi late models) and Pual Kot (super late models).
Racing will be back in action Saturday with a regular six-division program including super lates, pro stocks, semi lates, economods, pure stocks and four cylinders.
Racing at Hidden Valley in Clearfield on Saturday had Justin Owens of Shilo picked up his first career feature win in the semi late division.
Other winners include Jimmy Holden of Tiona in the small block modifieds, who is undefeated this season so far, Gene Wrightstone of Enola in the vintage modified portion of PA Thunder on the Dirt while Tim Harris of Mansfield won in the sportsmans portion of the series, Joe Kephart of Williamsburg won his first pure stock feature of the season, while Jimmy Ogden of Clearfield and Tim Raup of Danville split four cylinder features.
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