TodayPennsylvania Speed Week: Hodnett wins Memorial
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Article RatingGreg Hodnett hit the nail on the head when he said that Moon Byers, Dave Yingst and himself make a really good combination.
Throw in car owners Jim and Sandy Kline and it's the top performing team by far so far in Central Pennsylvania this season.
Hodnett was brilliant again Friday night as he raced to the win in the $10,000 Mitch Smith Memorial at Williams Grove Speedway. The race was the sixth night of the 17th annual Cindy Rowe Auto Glass Pennsylvania Speedweek.
Not only did Hodnett pass leader Lucas Wolfe on lap 19 for the lead, he then was able to pull into a tie with Wolfe for the overall Speedweek points lead. Both drivers head into tonight's Speedweek show at Port Royal with 742 points.
Wolfe, of Mechanicsburg finished second over Liverpool's TJ Stutts, Allentown's Sean Michael and Upperco, Maryland's Jeff Shepard in Friday night's event that was also part of the fourth annual Diakon Adoption Night
at the speedway.
“This feels great,” said the Thomasville driver after his 37th career Williams Grove win, which moved him into a tie with Steve Kinser for eighth on the all-time win list at the track. “Moon Byers, Dave Yingst and myself make a real good combination and the whole team works very well together. Of course Jim and Sandy put us in the best of everything. If we have a bad night, nobody blames anybody and we just come back tomorrow and try to do better. The philosophy with the team is if we don't get them tonight, we'll get them tomorrow.”
Aside from an early season injury that sidelined the team for about eight weeks, Hodnett has been the man to beat. His win last night was the ninth of the season and his second during Speedweek. He won the other $10,000 to win race in the series opener last weekend at Lincoln Speedway.
After a red flag on the start after Ryan Bohlke spun and collected Brian Leppo and Todd Hestor, Michael led lap one of the 30-lap feature but Wolfe blasted by for the top spot on lap two.
Hodnett settled into third until Doug Esh brought out a yellow flag on lap 13.
Hodnett drove by Michael into the runner-up spot on the restart and set his sights on the young Wolfe, who will be heading to Ohio next week to race Rick Kaylor's car in several NRA Sprint Invaders 360 shows as well as the Brad Doty Classic.
Hodnett caught Wolfe on the 19th lap and drove underneath him for the lead and began to pull away.
Wolfe made a late race surge, closing to within a couple car lengths but Hodnett prevailed in the J & S Fabrication, Macri Concrete, Rock-It Pizza, Eastern Air Balance, Randy Shearer Plumbing and Heating, Don Ott Racing Engines No. 22 sprinter.
Hodnett's win also moved him on top of the Williams Grove Speedway points standings, despite missing several full point races due to his injury.
“Mitch Smith was a great car driver as were many of those guys back then” Hodnett said of the race in honor of Smith. “Those guys manhandled those cars and didn't have anything like we have today. I sure couldn't drive a race car without all the things we have today. It was guys like him that set the standard for sprint car racing today. It feels good to win this race.”
Brian Montieth made an unbelievable charge from the 24th starting spot to finish sixth in the event that featured only one caution. Seventh went to Fred Rahmer over Stevie Smith, Mike Erdley and Lance Dewease.
Hodnett and Wolfe sit on top of the Speedweek points with Smith third with 648 points, Dewease fourth with 580 and Todd Shaffer fifth with 517. The top 10 are Chad Layton (471), Leppo (469), Stutts (451), Keith Kauffman (438) and Rahmer (431).
Wolfe set fast time over the 45-car field with a lap of 16.999 seconds.
Heat races were won by Shaffer, Kauffman, Rahmer and Hodnett with Craig Keel winning the B-Main and Steve Clabaugh winning the C-Main.
Speedweek continues tonight at Port Royal and concludes Sunday at Selinsgrove Speedway.
