PENNSYLVANIA, USA — Everyone has the dream of adding their name to a prestigious list of drivers that have feated the grueling stretch of Pennsylvania Speedweek.
Mother Nature has won three days so far, with Williams Grove raining out Friday, Lincoln on Monday and Grandview on Tuesday.
The rainy forecast isn't playing in the favor of any driver attempting to chip away at Anthony Macri’s points lead.
The week started the same as last year for Macri; he picked up a dominating performance at Lincoln Speedway, then headed to BAPS to do the same.
"I still can't get overly confident, you know, it's seven more nights to go [and I] don't know if it's just Sprint car racing. Anything can happen from tonight," said Macri, driver of the No. 39M Macri Motorsports.
Brent Marks found himself in a jam early in the week, after not being able to finish the third night at BAPS, and had a lot of ground to make up for in points.
But, don’t count the "Myerstown Missile" out.
Marks and Macri put on a show at Hagerstown on Wednesday. It was hard for anyone in the audience to take their eyes off the leaders swapping leads and sliders the entire race.
During the race, Marks shot down to the wall and made room for himself between the inside wall and the lap car, which had spectators on the edge of their seats!
"It was just one of those situations where [it was] either going to make it through or wasn't," recalled Marks.
He was able to take control on the final lap for the feature win at Hagerstown.
"That was one heck of a race and it was a lot of fun. [Anthony and I] were just so equal, and it was so hard to get runs on him. I felt like when I got a run on him and tried to make a pass, he would get back underneath me and kind of pull away," stated Marks. "We would come back close to each other again, and it was a lot of back and forth, cat and mouse game. [I] just had a blast racing near Hagerstown,"
Lincoln Speedweek is able to make up Monday’s rainout on Thursday. Still, a few drivers are within reach of Macri’s lead, including Freddie Rahmer who set the quick time.
Two late cautions had Macri and Marks licking their chops at a chance of passing Rahmer for the lead.
Fortunately for him, Rahmer knew the lines to block and managed to extend his status as the most successful driver in the country, now with nine wins under his belt. This race marked his seventh win at Lincoln, this season alone.
"I [saw] my dad come down under that last yellow and [he] told me to change on my restart here, to try to get a better launch into one. I think that gave us a little more gap," said Rahmer. "I [knew] if I didn't see him try to fly me down, I'd be okay both laps. [I'm] just glad to get it done,"
After a small weather delay at Williams Grove on Friday, teams began moving from the front stretch pits to the backstretch pits for safety precautions.
Soon enough, it was finally time to race and the track had quite the bite.
The young gun, Derek Hauck, got up on two wheels and went around. That would only be the second red of Speedweek.
The familiar duo on the front row of the feature were none other than Marks and Macri; Marks established his lead early, but Macri was determined not to give up.
However, every time Macri showed his nose, Marks had the better line on the technical track. The race ended with Marks picking up the 20,000 Mitch Smith win, as Macri has yet to finish worse than second.
"I knew how difficult it would be to get through lap traffic, and once we got there I just had a pick and choose my battles one to make passes [and] when to be patient," described Marks It's just extremely hard because you catch him at such a fast pace, you can just feel the pace slow down and you know the guy behind you is coming. That's what makes it really difficult to try to continue to maintain that pace and not let anybody that's racing you get a run on you."
There's still one more race left at Port Royal on Monday, which give Macri a chance to try and clinch his first Pa. Speedweek title. There's 127 point separating Macri and Marks with a 185 points on the line with a perfect night at the speed palace.