Local Racing
Sheppard WoO Late Model Star; Rahmer also Wins at the Grove
WILLIAMS GROVE (August 21, 2020): Brandon Sheppard doubled up on the eastern swing for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, scoring his second consecutive win in the mid-state and thirteenth of the season on the tour. Picking where he left off at nearby Lincoln Speedway, Sheppard led all 40 laps at the Grove. Taking the 410 Sprint feature was Freddie Rahmer, Jr. It was his first of the season at the track.
Although Sheppard has always driven the Late Models, he appreciates the history at Williams Grove. “I love this track,” he said. “I came here once as a kid to see a Sprint Car race.” That’s pretty impressive considering the fact that Sheppard was raised in New Berlin, IL. Although Sheppard dominated the race, he was unaware of a potential problem with his Rocket house car. “He was leaking rear end grease,” explained the second place finisher, Gregg Satterlee. Satterlee remained patient racing behind Sheppard, as he was hoping that Sheppard’s car would fail him in the final laps. But, it did not.
Cade Dillard and Sheppard had the first row for the Late Model go by luck of the draw. Then came Darrell Lanagan and Mason Zeigler. Jason Covert and Max Blair were in row three, with surprising Gene Knaub in row four. Satterlee lined up in row five with Scott Bloomquist beside him.
Dillard led the field into turn one, but Sheppard dropped to the inside in turn two and took the lead racing down the long back stretch at the Grove. Dillard stayed close, but he could not close the gap that Sheppard began to create.
Dillard got a couple of tries on restarts, but he could not capitalize on them. Then, he started searching to find a quicker line that may have given him a shot at overhauling the leader. However, nothing worked for him.
While Dillard was chasing Sheppard in vain, the action behind him was pretty intense. Ricky Weiss, Zeigler, Lanagan, and Satterlee were fighting for positions. Weiss kept trying the outside line and he jumped the cushion several times in the first and second corners. Several times he came storming back, only to have it happen again.
By the halfway mark, Satterlee moved into third and Rick Eckert climbed into fourth Eckert had started in the middle of the field, but pitted early for an adjustment and he steadily worked his way toward the front.
A caution on lap 30 gave Dillard his last chance to snatch the lead away from Sheppard on a restart. Dillard tried the high side again, but he, too, had trouble with the cushion. Dillard gave up several positions due to his miscue.
A caution just four laps later gave Satterlee his one and only chance to challenge for the lead. He rolled into turn one on the inside of Sheppard, but Sheppard maintained his momentum and pulled away coming through turn two. Eckert closed in on Satterlee in the final laps, but he could not get his car to turn effectively despite making several in-car adjustments .
At the finish, it was Sheppard over Satterlee and Eckert. Taking fourth was Zeigler. Knaub challenged for fourth on the final lap, but he could not hold the position. Still, fifth was quite a run for the local driver. Dillard crossed in sixth. Ashton Winger, Lanagan, Chase Junghans, and Dennis Erb, Jr. completed the top ten.
Heat wins were scored by Dillard, Sheppard, Lanagan, and Zeigler. The pair of B Mains went to Kyle Lee and Jeff Rine. The fastest qualifier overall was Brent Larson, who topped the A Group with a lap of 19.773 seconds. he was unable to take advantage of the good time, and had to use a series provisional to startthe A Main. The fastest driver in Group B was Brandon Sheppard, at 19.800. There were 39 cars registered this night.
The 410 Sprint Car feature started with a bang. As the field was coming to take the green, there was chaos in the middle of the pack. Cars started flipping, four in all, and seven in total were involved in the big wreck. Although several cars sustained damage, including that of points leader Brent Marks, none of the drivers were injured.
The revamped line-up had Jordan Givler on the pole with Brent Shearer outside. Jason Solwold and Chase Dietz were in row two, with T.J. Stutts and Brett Michalski in the fourth row. Kyle Reinhardt was inside row five and Rahmer was moved up beside him. Matt Campbell and Adrian Shaffer were in row six. The second half of the field was jumbled and it appeared that several scoring errors took place, as Campbell was not penalized for working on his car on the track during the red flag and Danny Dietrich was placed ahead of several competitors who were not scored as part of the accident, even though he pitted for a new right rear tire.
When the race started again, Givler led the field into the corner. Shearer made a play for the lead, but spun. He did a complete 360, without making any contact, and kept his car moving. However, he fell to the rear of the field in the process.
Givler’s lead was short-lived, however. Dietz took command after a restart with one lap in the books. Reinhardt moved into fourth. Solwold held down second and Rahmer was up to fifth.
Dietz began to stretch out his lead, while Solwold was having trouble keeping Rahmer at bay. Meanwhile, Dietrich was marching through the diminished field.
Rahmer grabbed second with a textbook slider on Solwold on lap seven. On the next trip around, Dietrich did the same to take third.
While the fans were anxious to see whether sparks would fly between Rahmer and Dietrich, Dietz led the way. Rahmer separated himself from Dietrich and got close enough to try sliders on Dietz for the lead. The first effort failed, on lap 14, but the next one succeeded.
Rahmer led the remaining ten laps without incident. Dietrich moved into second on lap 16, but he was unable to reel in the leader. Dietz crossed in third, wondering what might have been had the wreck not brought the surviving fast cars closer to him for the start. Solwold was fourth, his best outing since taking over the John Trone car. Steve Buckwalter cam on in the second half of the race to earn fifth.
Positions six through ten went to Stutts, Reinhardt, Kyle Moody, Lucas Wolfe, and Adrian Shaffer.
Heat wins went to Givler, Shearer, and Solwold. Lucas Wolfe had his top wing collapse while leading his heat. As a result, he was relegated to last on the original starting grid. There was no B Main.
Williams Grove will have twin 20 lap features next week for the All Star Circuit of Champions. This will be a must-see event. It will be the Jack Gunn Memorial paying tribute to the innovative former promoter of the speedway.
SARVER, PA (April 26, 2024) AJ Flick picked up his first Peoples Natural Gas Sprint Car win of 2024 at Lernerville Speedway on Friday night and Michael Norris made it back-to-back wins in the Late Model Division.
Flick started fourth on the grid and passed leader and pole-sitter Carl Bowser using the bottom side on lap 8 while Bowser worked the high side. Bowser wouldn’t go away easily, pulling side-by-side with Flick at the halfway mark. Flick eventually was able to hold Bowser at bay, building a three-second lead as he encountered lap traffic.
A caution flag with five-laps-to-go bunched up the field but Flick got an impressive restart and kept the field at bay to pick up the victory. Bowser finished second and Michael Bauer finished third after starting eighth.
“I didn’t expect it to slick off as much as it did,” Flick said about the track conditions. “It was odd because it wasn’t really wide but yet the actual racing groove was getting slick and starting to come in already. I missed it in the heat race, but come feature time it seems like we’re starting to dial it in a bit more.”
Norris started 10th and put on a clinic coming through the field to make it two straight at ‘The action Track.’
“Luck was on our side tonight,” Norris said. “I always seem to have late race cautions. Thanks to John Garvin for leaving me a lane, he got me pretty good on that last restart but I knew as long as I could be even with him going into turn one, the top was so good and it was.”
Erick Rudolph made the trip to Sarver from Ransomville, New York and it paid off. Rudolph took home the feature victory in the Diehl Automotive Big Block Modified main event.
“There’s something about Lernerville Speedway,” said Rudolph. “It’s one of my favorite tracks in the country and anytime we get a chance to come down here it’s always something we look forward to.”
Tyler Dietz proved to be the class of the field once again, garnering his first feature win in the Millerstown Pic-A-Part Pro Stock main event. Dietz survived a late race restart and held off front row starter Tim Bish and a hard charging Chris Schneider to grab the checkered flag.
“I kind of thought that he (Bish) was going to take the bottom,” Dietz stated, remarking about the crucial restart. “I was hoping he would go high because I think I was better up high but I just never got the chance to go up there.”
PITTSBURGH, PA (April 24, 2025) The Historic Stock Car Racing Association (HSCRA) is joining the lineup of racing groups at this year’s Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix (PVGP) Historics at Pittsburgh International Race Complex. This is the first time the HSCRA will race in the PVGP Historics 3-day weekend, July 26 to 28, 2024.
“We are thrilled to welcome the HSCRA to our 2024 event,” said Dan DelBianco, Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. “Their participation not only broadens the appeal of the PVGP Historics but also aligns with our mission to celebrate all automotive history. This is a fantastic opportunity for race fans of all types to witness the power and beauty of historic stock cars in action.”
The HSCRA, renowned for its commitment to preserving and celebrating the history of stock car racing, will bring a new dimension to the PVGP Historics. The group is open to all stock cars that ran in one of the major NASCAR series.
“The HSCRA is anxious to bring NASCAR to Pittsburgh,” said Carlus Gann of HSCRA. “We look forward to making this a regular stop on our tour. Western Pennsylvania has deep roots in racing, and building a world-class track at Pitt Race in Beaver County makes it a perfect fit.”
The most popular class is Generation 4 Cup cars built for the 1992-2007 seasons. During this era, teams built a few cars for the two road courses on the schedule.
“We are hoping for a full field of meticulously restored stock cars,” added Chris Evans of the HSCRA. “Former NASCAR winners like Joe Nemechek and a competitive lineup of today’s top historic stock car drivers will be on hand.”
Gary Moore, a seasoned participant in over a dozen PVGP races, knows the intricacies and challenges of the Pitt Race track. Moore will be showcasing his 1969 Mercury Cyclone (right), victoriously driven by Cale Yarborough, exclaiming, “It’s quite the adventure behind the wheel!”
The HSCRA will have a practice session in the morning and a qualifying race in the afternoon on Friday, July 26. A morning and afternoon practice session on Saturday, July 27. Sunday, July 28 will see the HSCRA have a short morning warm-up prior to being one of the featured Sunday afternoon races.
The Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix Motorsport Festival features two weekends of racing action. The first weekend is the PVGP Historics at Pittsburgh International Race Complex. The second weekend is racing through a 2.33-mile road course set on the streets of Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park. In addition to the race weekends, the PVGP stages car shows, parties, road rallies, and a black-tie formal. The PVGP’s mission is to provide residential care, treatment and support for people with autism and intellectual/developmental disabilities – donating $6.7 million to charity since 1983.
IMPERIAL, PA (April 20, 2024) Aliquippa’s Tim Shaffer started on the pole position and survived several caution flags and restarts to win the Herb Scott Memorial Saturday night at Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway (PPMS).
“Boy I earned that one huh,” said Shaffer following the race. “These wins just keep getting better and better. Herb Scott won a lot of features and I have a long way to go to catch him, but my career went on the road and it became hard to win races. It’s kind of back home racing now for me and it’s a lot of fun.”
Brock Pinkerous and Dave Hess Jr. staged an epic battle over the last several laps with Pinkerous scoring an emotional runner-up finish.
“Congrats to Tim on the win,” said Pinkerous, who hails from Ellenville, NY. “He’s really good at this track. Him and Dave are legends around this area. It’s really cool to battle with them; they raced me clean and I raced them clean. Even though we didn’t win tonight, this is for my uncle tonight who passed away about a month ago. I hope he’s watching over us tonight, and I really love you uncle Chris.”
“We were really good on those restarts,” said Hess, the 39-year-old Waterford, Pa. driver. “A little tweak to the car and maybe a gear change and we could have had something for the leaders. Once those two (Shaffer and Pinkerous) got rolling, they were a little better than I was.”
Kyle Lukon finished fifth and Logan Roberson rounded out the Top 5.
A Feature (30 Laps): 1. 45-Tim Shaffer[1]; 2. 555-Brock Pinkerous[4]; 3. 44-Dave Hess Jr[21]; 4. 184-Kyle Lukon[5]; 5. 17R-Logan Roberson[19]; 6. 10S-Joe Martin[16]; 7. 36-Cody Dawson[7]; 8. 3J-Jeremy Wonderling[10]; 9. 42-Daryl Charlier[6]; 10. 184C-Justin Chance[13]; 11. 21J-Jim Rasey[24]; 12. 184P-Cole Petrelle[20]; 13. 77-Tom Klein[23]; 14. 57-Charlie Sandercock[11]; 15. 36B-Colby Beighey[15]; 16. 18-Mike Wonderling[25]; 17. 29-Ryan Hare[17]; 18. 60H-Brian Huchko[22]; 19. 9R-Mike Reft[14]; 20. 25-Zachary Kane[9]; 21. 72B-Kassidy Kamicker[18]; 22. 75-Jared Miley[3]; 23. 60-Brandon Burgoon[2]; 24. 14AJ-AJ Miller[8]; 25. 14G-Jake Gunn[12]
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Flick, Norris, Rudolph and Dietz Victorious at Lernerville
Wagaman and Brenneman Top Williams Grove
Scott Dixon on top of INDYCAR Championship Standings after Team Penske Penalty
Borden Thrills at Port Royal; Robinson, Covert, and Hart also Score
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