Hejna, Hastreiter and Bookmiller collected their Bounty on Pirates night at WCIS
Hejna, Hastreiter and Bookmiller collected their Bounty on Pirates night at WCIS
Photos By: Dan Turner/Wyoming County International Speedway
Photos By: Rob Micoli/Wyoming County International Speedway
On this, the Hottest night at the Wyoming County Intl. Speedway for 2018. It’s was a fantastic racing program. With temperatures near 100 degrees and even hotter in the cars, racing was amazing. The top quality drivers and equipment really excelled on this evening. Great side by side racing and even with the heat the drivers stayed cool. Thou a few crew members were a little warm under the collar by the end of the evening.
The ever popular 4 cylinders were flying high wide and handsome on the sticky 1/3 mile blacktop. Class regulars Otis Bradshaw and Kathie Ricketson would lead the field to green. It was Bradshaw jumping out front early. Bradshaw started opening up a sizable lead before the first of 4 cautions would fly and scramble up the running order. This would bring the heat winners up on Bradshaw’s bumper.
Holland invader Kenny Hejna and Brian Johnson, already showed some power as each won their respective heats. Throw the green and both would slip by the 05 Bradshaw. First Johnson then it was Hejna turn. Hejna would work on Johnson over the next few laps and take the top spot. Bradshaw would slip to 4th and 2 time feature winner Jacob Gustafson would take home third place position.
Week in and week out the SST Super Stock class has put on some of the closest racing at the Blacktop Bullring. This week was no exception as a pair of 14’s brought them to green. On the pole was Troy Williams in the Majchrzak owned #14 and flanking him was the 14s of Mike ‘Scrappy” Chenaille. Seems the hot sticky night sort of leveled the playing field in this division.
There did not seem to have a clear cut favorite to win tonight. Williams used that pole starting spot to take the early lead but in no way was running away on this stought field of cars and drivers. Hastreiter had worked himself into third and was having a great night. The Stealth missile of Joe Horvatits came from deep in the field looking to claim feature #3 in as many nights. Horvatits would clear the #47 of Hastreiter and start his pursuit for 3 in a row. But the cagey veteran Troy Williams want to get his first win of 2018. Side note, Horvatits uses Williams shop to prepare his car and was been taught a lot by William about racing and chassis set up.
So this set the scene of Teacher and Student. The student #4(Horvatits) ran down and caught the #14 of Williams. With less than 10 laps remaining, Williams left enough room on the bottom and Horvatit tried to take advantage. Williams saw the move in his rear view mirror and tried to close the opportunity and they made contact. Both ended up on the infield, Williams backwards and Horvatits knowing he was going tail. This would put Eric Hastreiter on the pole for the restart. Eric took full advantage and would put the #47 in victory lane. “I knew we had a good car tonight, and want to thank MOM for buying a couple tires.” Williams would battle back to a second place finish with young Cole Hicks rounding out the top three.
SST Modifieds were the night cap as usual on this Super, hot Pirate’s night at the races. The blazing sun went down a nice cool breeze kicked in and set the stage for another Modified show down at the Blacktop Bullring. Nineteen Modifieds were on hand for this last hot Saturday of June. We had in my opinion a star studded field of regulars and some notable invaders. Invaders like Andy (J)ankowiak, in the Kluth Motorsports #41x. Tommy Catalano made a showing in the Lewis family racing #41. First appearance in about 4 years, while Timmy Lewis is still recouping from leg surgery. Tom Alloco’s #6 and the #96 of Steve Sherwood were slated for the front row. Coming to green it was Alloco slipping by Sherwood to grad the early lead. That was short lived as on lap two a few cars came together and that parked the Jen Dennie #22 off turn two with a steering issue, and done for the night.
This would also send the #00 of Toad Bradshaw pit side with a flat left rear. Alloco would have a left front tire down and need a new sneaker. Start #2. Young Steve Sherwood learned well from the original start and this time he would take the point. A few laps later the yellow would fly again as the #4 of Steve Fuchs would get turned around in turn for with a little help from hard racing with the #41x of Andy J. The race would reel off a bunch of laps before the caution would fly for Cassie Logsdon as she spun her #09 off turn 4. This would interrupt what I believe to be the best racing at WCIS in a long time.
The Rocket man, Ricky Knapp Jr was out front and the Orange #40 of Alan Bookmiller came from ninth starting spot to the number 2 position and was closing. Bookmiller got to the outside of Knapp and these two plots ran lap after lap side by side without touching each other. Bookmiller was slowly making ground and was a nose ahead when Logsdons caution slowed the racing action. Rules state caution flies, back up one lap, Knapp still up front. Knapp takes the outside lane on the restart. Bookmiller used the short way around the 1/3 high banked oval to clear Knapp and show that his heat race win was no fluke. Catalano would get comfortable in the #41 machine and bring it home 3rd with Andy J and Toad Bradshaw, both rebounding to respectable 4th and 5th positions.
4 cylinder Heats K.Hejna, B.Johnson\
1)K.Hejna, 2)B.Johnson, 3)J.Gustafson, 4)O.Bradshaw, 5)D.Heims, 6)K.Ricketson, 7)R.Palmer, 8)M.Bradshaw, 9)M.Hurlburt, 10)S.Sickles, 11)J.Klamut, 12)T,Catalano, 13)J.Schosek
SST Super Stocks Heats T.Williams, Z.Meyers
1)E.Hastreiter, 2)T.Williams, 3)C.Hicks, 4)Z.Meyers, 5)R.Richter, 6)F.Kline, 7)K.Lanni, 8)M.Chenaille, 9)M.Loveland, 10)J.Horvatits, 11)S.Gleed, 12)P.Flye, 13)K.Skoney
SST Modifieds Heats T.Alloco, S.Fuchs, A.Bookmiller
1)A.Bookmiller, 2)R.Knapp Jr, 3)T.Catalano, 4)A.Jankowiak, 5)T.Bradshaw, 6)D.Majchrzak, 7)S.Fuchs, 8)S.Sherwood, 9)C.Logsdon, 10)C.Bolton, 11) T.Alloco, 12)B.Kosachook Jr, 13)D.Frutchey, 14)N.Michielsen, 15)B.Kosachook Sr, 16)B.Bradshaw
