After an
11-Year Absence, Stacey Brown Returns to Mahoning's Victory Lane
Stacey Brown came from 15th
starting spot and emerged as a surprise winner Saturday night at Mahoning
Valley Speedway thanks in part to keen driving, a little luck and being in
the right place at the right time.
Brown, a veteran driver
from Danielsville, made his way into the top five with six laps to go. A lap
later he advanced to third after Lou Strohl and Lonnie Behler tangled in
front of him. At that point it looked as though he would be settling for
either second or third but when leader Tom Flanagan spun two laps from the
finish after dueling with James Pritchard, Brown suddenly found himself the
new leader. He then withstood Pritchard in a last lap clash and won by a
scant .019-second margin of victory, his first in over 11 years.
“I don’t know how I did but
I did,” said an elated Brown who’s last win came on June 27, 1998. “We took
a gamble tonight because I was trying to hold off putting new rubber on for
the past two weeks. I have no budget and was running on used tires for
weeks. But the car was handling like crap so I figured put them on now and
see what we got. I still can’t believe we did this.”
At the outset Flanagan
jumped into the lead from his outside row one starting spot and began
pulling away from the pack. His moderate lead was erased when the first
caution flew on lap 19.
When the race resumed
Flanagan was now surrounded by Strohl, Behler and Don Wagner who had been
waging quite a battle. Wagner had picked up second spot on lap 12 and was
just about ready to make a move on Flanagan after the restart but close
running Strohl nipped him from behind while under very tight conditions and
he went into a race ending spin.
Flanagan now had Strohl and
Behler hot on his trail. Closing fast was Chip Santee. Santee got by Strohl
for third on lap 25 and was pulling even with Behler. Heading into turn
three on lap 28, Santee got a bump from Strohl, again under close quarters,
and he spun.
The second place battle was
now between Strohl and Behler while running within feet of Flanagan. With
six laps left Behler’s quest for a first win abruptly ended when Strohl made
contact with him while battling for the spot.
Strohl parked it for the
night while Behler checked into the pits before returning to the rear of the
field.
Flanagan was far from home
free as his next challenge came from Pritchard. Clearly having one of his
best ever runs in a Modified, Pritchard tried to go under Flanagan with two
laps to go. As he was going low slight contact was made and Flanagan lost
control and spun. As Pritchard was backing off Brown, who had been third,
veered away from them both and took over the lead.
“I was going to give him a
shot. I didn’t want to take him out or anything like that, just give him a
little nudge and let him know I was there. This was Saturday night short
track racing at its finest without a doubt,” said Pritchard.
The final restart saw
Pritchard make a last ditch effort on Brown but his bid came up just a foot
shy of the checkered flag.
“I think I wore out my
brakes and steering trying to escape all that stuff,” said Brown.
Although he just missed
getting the win, it was still a career night for Pritchard with the
Modifieds.
“We were beating and
banging a little bit but that’s normal up front and to be expected,” said
Pritchard.
“The first couple of laps I abused the tires and the car got so tight I
couldn’t even turn it. So I backed up my entry in the corned and the car
just came alive.
“He’s a great competitor
and it’s always fun to battle with Stacey. You run him clean and he runs you
clean. I needed a couple laps if I was going to try him on the high side.
With the green-white-checkered it was like a bonsai move and all I needed
was a couple, more feet.”
Todd Baer, Santee and
Jarred Nace completed the top five.
In the fifth annual Street
Stock 100, Randy Ahner, Jr., of Jim Thorpe took advantage of lapped traffic
and passed Shawn Sitarchyk for the lead on lap 67. He then withstood several
late race tries by runner-up TJ Gursky in scoring the biggest win of his
career. The victory paid $1000. Ahner started fifth and from lap nine never
ran lower than third. Sitarchyk had grabbed the lead from the get go and was
in a constant battle with Ahner and Kristy Arthofer as all three showed the
potential to win. Ahner and Arthofer ran continually in side-by-side fashion
throughout stretches of green flag racing.
At lap 60 Ahner shook free
from Arthofer and was bearing down on Sitarchyk. Lapped traffic was also a
factor at this point and on the 66th tour the pair came upon slower cars and
Ahner was able to move to the high lane while Sitarchyk was trapped to the
inside groove.
After making the pass
Arthofer and Gursky soon followed suit. The fine run by Arthofer came to an
unfortunate end when she got nudged and spun while under heavy pressure with
13 laps to go.
Ahner then held off Gursky
over the waning laps in garnering his division leading fourth win of the
season and remains locked in a close point battle with Sitarchyk.
“This is definitely the
biggest win of my career. I won a big race a couple of years ago in a
Factory Stock at the Race of Champions at Oswego but that doesn’t compare to
this,” said Ahner.
“Shawn (Sitarchyk), I think
he was a little loose and I felt I had something for him when I was on the
bottom behind him but that didn’t work. The traffic played into our hands.
“I want to give a big
thanks and shout out to Rusty Ahner. He really helped me the last couple of
weeks and he really turned this car around.”
Brian Labar, Josh Mooney and Sitarchyk completed the top five.
There was no question Todd
Stehle’s Late Model win came by virtue of good luck. Comfortably running in
third late in the race, Stehle was handed the lead with two laps to go after
front runners Austen Kochenash and Frankie Althouse tangled.
Kochenash led from the drop
of the green with Althouse in pursuit. With five laps remaining Althouse
began looking to the inside of the leader. At two circuits to go Althouse
tried to make a run underneath Kochenash but there wasn’t enough room to
pull off the pass. The result was Kochenash spinning and for his part in the
incident Althouse was asked to join him at the rear of the pack for the
restart.
Point leader Stehle, from
Jim Thorpe, was placed in front and then held off a strong running Kristian
Kalch for his second straight win and fifth on the season.
Jeremy Miller of Walnutport
not only raced to his fourth Pro4 Late Model win of the season but he did so
by passing point leader and top winner Kevin Graver, Jr.,
Passing Graver has been a
rarity this season yet Miller, who has been one of the select few to do so
and continues to chase him in the standings, powered past with four laps to
go and notched his 24th career win and moved back into a tie for class
overall class victories with Graver.
Dirt Modified point leader Randy Thomas continued his impressive string of
top two finishes over the last eight races as he picked up a pair of firsts.
Early in the evening the Palmerton hot shoe came out and won the postponed
feature from July 25 and then backed it up with another victory in the
regular feature.
In that second race Thomas
got a bit lucky. On lap 15 he was passed by Steve Folk for the lead but two
turns later Folk caught up in lapped traffic and spun. The top spot went
back to Thomas who then cruised home to victory.
D.J. Wagner of Wharton, NJ
scored his career first victory of any kind as he took top honors in the
Sportsman Micro Stock main in what was a very memorable win as he passed his
dad, Modified standout Don Wagner, en route to victory.
Modified Feature Finish, 35 Laps: 1.Stacey Brown 2.James Pritchard, Jr.
3.Todd Baer 4.Chip Santee 5.Jarred Nace 6.Matt Higgins 7.Lonnie Behler 8.Tom
Flanagan 9.Keith Mellars 10.Bill Teel 11.Lou Strohl 12.Don Wagner 13.Rick
Kirkendall 14.Brian DeFebo 15.John Bennett 16.Rick Reichenbach
Late Model Feature Finish,
25 Laps: 1.Todd Stehle 2.Kristian Kalch 3.Joe Mooney 4.Geno Steigerwalt 5.
Rick Wallace 6.Chub Steigerwalt 7.Austin Kochenash 8.Frank Althouse 9.Doug
Bell 10.Cody Geist
Street Stock Feature
Finish, 100 Laps: 1.Randy Ahner Jr. 2.TJ Gursky 3.Brian Labar 4.Josh Mooney
5. Shawn Sitarchyk 6.Kristy Morone 7.Scooter Graver 8.Jason Frey 9.Devin
Gibson 10.Adam Santee 11.Jillian Long 12.Bob Kibler 13.Jamie Smith 14.Justin
Mooney 15.Steve Hoffman 16.Paul Effrig 17.Matt May 18.Chris May 19.TJ
Kemmerer 20.Todd Ahner 21.Mike Garris, Jr.
Pro4 Late Model Feature
Finish, 20 Laps: 1.Jeremy Miller 2.Kevin Graver, Jr. 3.Kevin Rex, Jr. 4.Jim
Wismer 5.Dennis Silfies 6.Dave Chapman 7.Mike Stringer 8.Mike Stofflet
9.Gene Bowers 10.Jake Kibler
Dirt Modified Feature
Finish, 20 Laps: 1.Randy Thomas 2.CHAD Jones 3.Dave Thomas 4.Tim Pitts
5.Alex Mayer 6.Steve Folk 7.Don Hildebrandt 8.Tom Cremer 9.Bill Briggs 10.DJ
Wagner 11.Bill Sittler 12.Joe Stangle
Make-up (7/25) Dirt
Modified Feature Finish, 20 Laps: 1.Randy Thomas 2.Folk 3.Jones 4.Briggs
5.Mayer 6.Dave Thomas 7.Pitts 8.Cremer 9.Stangle 10.DJ Wagner