Morris & Blumenshine Score Big On Night One of Lanco’s Labor Day Shootout
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Morris & Blumenshine Score Big On Night One of Lanco’s Labor Day Shootout
Newmanstown, PA – Night One of the Labor Day Shootout at Lanco’s Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway opened with a bang on Saturday, as 161 Micro-Sprints took part in the festivities sponsored by Hyper Racing, West Fabrications, Kim’s Kreations, and Jared Davis Motorsports, along with a plethora of associate and contingency sponsors.
James Morris, “the Real Deal from Reigelsville”, emerged from a scintillating, race long battle with Jared Esh to score the $1,000 victory in the winged 600cc main event. Morris and Esh swapped the lead continuously throughout the 30-lap thriller, trading slide job after slide job at both ends of the speedway. Right behind the terrific duel for the top spot, Chris Panczner and Kyle Lick produced a fantastic imitation of the battle for the lead, throwing huge sliders on one another during the second half of the event.
Morris eased ahead of Esh with a few laps remaining and went on to win by a half-second, with Panczner surviving his tussle with Lick to earn third place honors. Kenny Miller III completed the top five.
The winged 270cc Micros took part in the Charlotte Hartman Memorial Race, honoring the memory of the mother of three-time Lanco point champ Richie Hartman.
Charlotte was watching over the proceedings, too, possibly playing into the redraw for feature starting spots. The top six drivers from dual-heat qualifying picked for their starting positions in the 30-lap Memorial Race, with Richie Hartman the final driver to draw for his spot. The only number left for Hartman was…number one.
And so it was that Hartman and Toby Blumenshine brought the field to the green flag, with Hartman grabbing the early lead. It wasn’t long, however, before Mike Rutherford roared from his sixth starting position to run second behind Hartman. On the fifth trip around the oval, Rutherford ducked under Hartman in turns three and four, then took command of the race as they charged down the homestretch.
On the 12th circuit, though, Rutherford’s night took a dramatic turn for the worse, as two cars in the back of the pack tangled in front of him as they entered turn one. Rutherford, carrying so much speed and momentum into the corner, was unable to avoid contact with Heath Hehnly’s No. 7 after Hehnly spun. The resulting damage knocked out Rutherford and handed the lead back to Hartman.
Twelfth starting Randy West entered the picture with 13 tours complete, racing into third just in time to watch Toby Blumenshine wrestle the top spot from Hartman at the halfway point. Blumenshine, from Reinholds, blasted away from his competitors, building such a big lead that even lapped traffic did not allow West and Jesse Maurer, who took third from Hartman, to close in and challenge for the lead. West and Maurer staged their own entertaining battle for the runner-up position over the final laps as the zigged and zagged in and out of lapped traffic.
At the end, Blumenshine registered the $2,000 triumph, his first in 270cc competition at Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway. West edged Maurer for second place cash, with Hartman and Kyle Spence (who started 18th) rounding out the top five.
“Just put this motor together yesterday,” said Blumenshine in his victory lane interview. “And I wasn’t real happy with it earlier tonight. But we got it adjusted for the feature and here we are,” he grinned. “I just want to thank everyone who helps me, and there’s a lot of people who help me out every week.”
Newfield, NJ’s Phil Durham hasn’t raced much over the past couple of seasons, but he returned to the driver’s seat of his dad’s No. 28A on Saturday and went home with the top prize in the 30-lap feature for the Sportsman Micro-Sprints. While Durham has won some big 125cc and 250cc Stock races at the Clyde over the years, this was his first in the Sportsman Class, and he was definitely the class of the field on Saturdaynight.
Durham started on the pole and was never seriously challenged, dashing to a 1.346-second victory over Nick Skias, who ran the Sportsman normally driven by his girlfriend, Megan Mercado.
Alvernia College student Sami Schenck finished third after she and Devin Adams engaged in a position-swapping duel for that position during the final ten laps. Adams settled for fourth and Greg Miller wound up fifth.
Jesse Maurer, the Mount Joy Outlaw, has made three starts in Gary Gorski’s 125cc Micro this season. And all three appearances have resulted in big wins, with the most recent coming in Saturday’s 30-lapper at the Clyde.
Maurer took the lead from pole sitter Shane Braxton on lap one, then fended off some challenges from Braxton before pulling away to a dominating triumph. Heath Hehnly motored into the runner-up spot on the sixth revolution, but Hehnly was no match for the high flying Maurer.
When the checkered flag waved, it was Maurer recording his seventh Labor Day victory in the 125cc division (since 2007), with Hehnly, William Manotti, Jas Hehnly, and Justin Harrington rounding out the top five.
Tyler Reinhardt beat Dave Grube to the checkered in the 270cc Non-Qualifiers Race, with Dave Williams, Ronald Helmick, and Lauren Huffman finishing third, fourth, and fith.
The car counts in each division on Saturday: 57 of the 600’s participated, while 44 of the 270cc Micros entered the C. Hartman Memorial. There were 34 Sportsman and 26 of the 125cc racers on hand for Night One of the Labor Day Shootout.
The second night of the two-day spectacular includes wingless racing for the 600’s and 270’s, and they will be joined by the All Star Slingshots as the Slingers take part in the Slide at the Clyde 3, a National Tour event for that division.
Warm-ups begin at 4 p.m. and the first heat race is scheduled to go green at 4:30.
RESULTS:
Winged 600cc Micro-Sprint Feature, 30 laps: 1.James Morris, 2.Jared Esh, 3.Chris Panczner, 4.Kyle Lick, 5.Kenny Miller III, 6.Alex Bright, 7.Brittany Brown, 8.Mike Dicely, 9.Brent Ely, 10.Heath Hehnly, 11.Shaun Brandel, 12.Zach Light, 13.Austin Bishop, 14.Jon Keller, 15.Ryan Groff, 16.Nate Prazenica, 17.Charles Hunt, 18.Mike Rutherford, 19.Kameron Morral, 20.Justin Whittall, 21.Chris Gerhart, 22.Sam LaMothe, 23.Jason Swavely, 24.Jarid Kunkle, 25.Tyler DeVault, 26.Kyle Spence.
DNQ: Brooklyn Gable, Danny Knoll, Brad Weber, Cory Grenzy, Patrick Ely, Dan Jones, Bruce Ginther Jr., Hank Steller, Jason Sechrist, Jacob Hendershot, Scott Smith, Ben Kysor, Robert Hocker, Luke Thomas, Jack Conover, Josh Conover, Jacob Lewczyk, Justin Schraden, Kyle Melvin, Rebecca LaMothe, Matt Carr, Kyle Coffey, Bret Cronrath, Jeff Schall, Jenna Heagy, Jason Brown, Johnny Brenner, Scott Rupp, Troy Musselman, Paul Slimick, Frank Jarkiewicz.
270cc Charlotte Hartman Memorial Race, 30 laps: 1.Toby Blumenshine, 2.Randy West, 3.Jesse Maurer, 4.Richie Hartman, 5.Kyle Spence, 6.Nick Skias, 7.Bradley Brown, 8.Mike Boyer, 9.Kenny Miller III, 10.Dan Lane Jr., 11.Billy Logeman, 12.Scott Gingrich, 13.Brandon Heist, 14.Ross Perchak, 15.Ken Miller, 16.Devin Harron, 17.Brayden Winters, 18.Nick Sweigart, 19.William Manotti, 20.Tyler Ulrich, 21.Robbie Watson, 22.TJGreve, 23.Brian Marriott, 24.Nate Weidman, 25.Heath Hehnly, 26.Mike Rutherford.
DNQ: Tyler Grau, Lauren Huffman, Brian Sholley, Christi Sweigart, Jacob Hendershot, Ronald Helmick, Nunzi Allegrucci, Tyler Reinhardt, Brock Whisler, Nicole Whisler, Dustin Fox, Dave Williams, Jim Myers, Dave Grube, Elizabeth Helmick, Donald Bouchelle, Jenna Schostkewitz, Cameron Bellinger.
Sportsman Micro-Sprint Feature, 30 laps: 1.Phil Durham, 2.Nick Skias, 3.Sami Schenck, 4.Devin Adams, 5.Greg Miller, 6.Tyler Reinhardt, 7.Toby Blumenshine, 8.Brandon Heist, 9.Angelo Mercado, 10.Curtis R. Miller, 11.Jas Hehnly, 12.Lee Reinhardt, 13.Jason Swavely, 14.Kerry Lengle, 15.Ava Bellinger, 16.Nick Walton, 17.John Davis, 18.Alex Swift, 19.Ken Miller, 20.Adam Minzer, 21.Charles Hellinger, 22.Cameron Bellinger, 23.Anthony Yerger, 24.Patrick Kirn.
DNQ: Ricky Sechrist, Adam Harnish, Dennis Fenstermacher, Matt Pfahler, Robert Miles, Austin Graby, Brandon Bucher, Ron Ford, Steve Smith Sr., Brian Kramer.
125cc Micro-Sprint Feature, 30 laps: 1.Jesse Maurer, 2.Heath Hehnly, 3.William Manotti, 4.Jas Hehnly, 5.Justin Harrington, 6.Dave Grube, 7.Corey Schmuck Jr., 8.Brianna Gerhart, 9.Alexis Sheely, 10.Cliff Brian, 11.Kelsey Heiney, 12.Kyler Heiney, 13.Ronald Wechter, 14.Shane Braxton, 15.Chase Gutshall, 16.Austin Graby, 17.Zack Hollinger, 18.Bradley Brown, 19.Brandon Gibble, 20.Dustin Adams, 21.Scott Renninger, 22.John Nocera, 23.Lavar Scott, 24.Thomas Kelley.
DNQ: Jimmy Wampole, Kody Hibshman.
270cc Non-Qualifiers Race, 8 laps: 1.Tyler Reinhardt, 2.Dave Grube, 3.Dave Williams, 4.Ronald Helmick, 5.Lauren Huffman, 6.Jenna Schostkewitz, 7.Elizabeth Helmick, 8.Tyler Grau.
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