ABBOTTSTOWN, Pa. — After a month of racing around Pa, the All-Star Circuit of Champions concluded their final swing to the Keystone State.
First, on Thursday BAPS Motor Speedway in action for the Greg Hodnett Foundation Race. Danny Dietrich stole the lead away from Ryan Smith 11-laps in. Dietrich led the rest of the way to capture his sixth win on the season but more impressive, his third win in 19-days.
He’ll carry that momentum into Friday night at the Grove for the dirt classic qualifier.
Just weeks after picking up his first 410 feature around the paperclip, Anthony Macri led the field to green.
Late in the race, Lance Dewease moved from fifth to second but got caught up in lap traffic to reach Macri. Just before the feature even started, Dewease clinched his seventh Williams Grove track title. His first in a decade. But, it was a perfect match as the No. 39 won the 39th Annual Jack Gunn Memorial for his second 410 win at the Grove, first All-Star win at the Grove and third All-Star win this season. It was an all Posse top five with Brent Marks, Chase Dietz and Dietrich closing out a fifth place run. Keeping with firsts, Austin Reed capped off his first 305 feature win at the Grove.
That brought us to the big money to close out the weekend on a beautiful afternoon at Lincoln Speedway for the 8th Dirt Classic. Interesting layout for the night with it all based on points to make the show: qualifying, a set of heat races then inverted heats.
All-star Justin Peck led the field to green. Without even competing the first lap, Hunter Shuerenberg got up, over the cushion and went for a ride in turns three and four. The car comes down hard to rest on all fours. Officials say he lost his brakes. Complete restart with Peck and Zeb Wise.
A thousand dollar bounty on the line for Aaron Reutzel if he finished in the top three after winning the B-Main. He only made it to 16th in the feature.
Two laps away from the halfway point, Brian Brown came to stop and at the same time, Dewease needed to be pushed back after his car shutoff.
Cushion was all the way up to the wall around each curve. Then, with 15-laps left Marks' rear end breaks running in second after having one of the fastest cars all night. Tough break for some of the top running posse drivers.
Macri and Freddie Rahmer battle for the third position in the second half of the race. They catch the leaders. Rahmer is able to beat Wise to the line as both drivers running out of gas.
With a second place finish, Rahmer clinched his second consecutive track championship at the Fabulous Lincoln Speedway.
The real story, Peck snapping a winless streak since July as another Pennsylvania track worked in his favor to win his seventh race of the season, this time for 20 grand.
“I just tried to save my equipment and if I got out front, it was going to be the name of the game there, too. Get conservative until you get to traffic and until you kind of just have to go. It worked out good. I was able to hit the bottom once the bottom finally cleaned off those last couple of laps, it got better and as Zeb started sputtering. I just kind of all fell our way and it hasn’t been doing that the las couple of months so it’s nice to finally have some luck on our side," said Peck.