Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Motor Speedway

7/5/2015

USAC Crown Champ, Swanson is BOSS at the Monster Half Mile in Pittsburgh! Alex Ferree shines in the DIEHL Supers, Schirnhofer wins Precise RUSH Crates

USAC Crown Champ, Swanson is BOSS at the Monster Half Mile in Pittsburgh! Alex Ferree shines in the DIEHL Supers, Schirnhofer wins Precise RUSH Crates, Christian Schneider Sunoco Sportsman winner, Joe Podolinsky dominant in Miley BP Hobby Stocks, O.B. Huff just keeps rolling in Imperial Heights Young Guns, Kelvin Kohan in 3/4 LM!

Apparently the magic number for the Mo Vaughn Transport / Buckeye Outlaw Sprint Series is 8. For the third consecutive race, the driver starting from the number eight position has raced to victory on the tour. Last night at Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Motor Speedway, it was Kingsburg, California driver Kody Swanson who drew the worst pill in the bucket for the feature lineup, yet managed to find victory lane with an impressive run to catch race long leader Shawn Westerfeld.

On Saturday at PPMS, 26 cars were on hand to do battle on the largest track the touring drivers will see all season long. Preliminary heat races were won by Michael Fischesser, Cooper Clouse, and Justin Owen. The B-Main event was taken by Michigan invader Steve Irwin.

The main event found Shawn Westerfeld and Chad Wilson making up the front row with Cooper Clouse and Joe Butera in row number two. Aaron Middaugh and Michael Fischesser were in the third row, while Justin Owen and Swanson made up the fourth row. Brandon Spithaler from nearby Evans City, Pennsylvania also made the redraw, but a mechanical problem in the Tom Burkey owned Superior Tank #57B forced Spithaler to another car. By BOSS rules, he had to start at the rear of the 20 car main event.

At the drop of the green flag, Shawn Westerfeld rocketed to the early lead in search of his first career BOSS victory with Cooper Clouse and Chad Wilson in tow. Very early on it was evident that Swanson was going to be a threat as he bolted from 8th to 4th in just a few laps.

The main event's only caution flew with 4 laps completed when Mike Miller made contact with the wall and coasted to a stop. The defending series champion was through for the evening. The running order under the caution flag was Westerfeld, Clouse, Wilson, Swanson and Middaugh making up the early top five.

Back under green, Westerfeld again asserted command and looked like the car to beat running the low line. By lap #7, Swanson had gotten to 3rd place as he began to experiment with multiple lines on the very wide PPMS oval. A few laps later Swanson was able to slip past Cooper Clouse for the runner-up spot as the cars hit the halfway point of the 21 lap main event. The running order at the halfway was Westerfeld, Swanson, Clouse, a hard charging Dustin Smith, and Michael Fischesser.

As the laps clicked away, Swanson began to try some higher grooves while Westerfeld was content to run the bottom. Having seen no prior threat early on, it may have come as a surprise when Swanson appeared on the outside and the duo raced through traffic putting on a dazzling display of driving. Swanson took the lead on lap 14, but a reenergized Westerfeld got up on the wheel to reel the Californian back in to retake the top spot on lap 16.

With traffic becoming a bigger factor, Swanson made the winning move on lap 17 to retake the lead as he chose the path less traveled putting the car high on the Monster Half Mile. Westerfeld was pinned behind some slower cars and had to hesitate off turn 4 to get by. This allowed Swanson to pull away to lead from lap 17 to the checkers. However, Shawn Westerfeld was determined and over the final 2 circuits pulled back up on the bumper of Swanson and challenged one final time to lose the race by less than a car length. The margin of victory officially was 0.102 seconds making it the second closest finish in BOSS history.

Following Swanson and Westerfeld were Dustin Smith, Michael Fischesser, and Cooper Clouse rounding out the top 5. Steve Irwin charged from 16th starting spot to finish 6th and claim the Bridge Restaurant "Hard Charger of the Night" award. Rounding out the rest of the top 10 were Justin Owen, Chad Wilson, Kent Wolters and Kirk Jeffries.

Great racing between Kody Swanson (21K) and Shawn Westerfield (89) in the Boss Sprints, with Swanson winning by a very small margin. Was cool watching those two dice through lapped traffic. Finishing 3rd was the #77, 4th was Michael Fichesser (4) and 5th was Cooper Clouse (14T). There were 25 Sprints cars.

DIEHL Automotive Super Late Models

Alex Ferree and John Flinner put on a wicked side by side battle for first 5 laps. Once Alfound the clear air out front he was uff d running in the familiar Joe Corado #10. Several good battles for position developed behind Ferree, but it was all Alex once he took the lead. Despite what appeared to be a slick speedway, Ferree found the bite to tour it in less than 19 seconds per lap!

Alex Ferree (10)
Steve Baker (0)
John Flinner (48)
Brandon Burgoon (02)
Jason Rider (47)
Colton Flinner (75)
Ed Ferree (4)
John Mollick (4J)
Ben Miley (99)
Jon Hodgkiss (69)
Kirk Baker (11)
Bill Yohe (13)
Butch Neubert (14)

Tommy Schirnhofer won his first Precise Racing Products Rush Late Model feature of the 2015 season, holding off all challengers in the hard charging field of racers. Chuck Medved led a circuit before giving way to Ron Hall, who led the next few laps. Meanwhile, Schirnhofer was charging from position 5, his best starting position of the season, to take the lead he would never relinquish on lap 6! It was an exciting event to watch, as several drivers were on the move from the back of the pack to take the front five positions. Schirnhofer from 5th to 1st, Kolesar from 8th to 2nd, Beatty from 6th to 3rd, Policz from 11th to 4th , and Dennis Niedereiter (Jabo3) from 9th to 5th.

Tommy Schirnhofer (8)
Russ Kolesar (27)
Steve Beatty (B4)
Ben Policz (14)
Dennis Niedereiter (Jabo3)
Ron Hall (01)
Josh Holtgraver (00)
Justin Massie (22)
Chuck Medved (2M)
Scott Schemp (75)
Chuck Recker Jr. (6R)
Josh Stoica (22)
Bryan Goebel (12G)
Justin Lamb (93)
Brian Hoffman (15H) DNS
Christian Schneider, the young protégé, driving the Frankie Schneider owned Mach1, won the Sunoco Sportsman main over the veteran chassis builder, Chris Schneider, in the Schneider show! Christian took the lead and never looked back, while the veteran Chris Schneider was charging from the 12th starting spot to the runner up spot behind Christian Schneider. Many drivers were on the move as they established themselves as top contenders for the $2,000 to win 4th annual Ed Laboon Memorial next Sat July 11...don't miss it!
Christian Schneider (5)
Chris Schneider (55)
Ricky Steigerwald (4)
Rusty Moore (17M)
Jeff Bronieczewski (08)
Todd Weldon (45)
Brett McDonald (25)
Bill Robertson (1B)
Brian Wagner (56)
Nick Kocuba (10)
Bob Heim (92)
Jacob Billyk (4)
Josh Langer (0)
David Ostrander (23D)
Davey Lee (96L)
Shaun Neubert (73)
Craig Koteles (64)
Dan Black (21D)
Mark Lee (25) DNS

Miley BP Hobby Stock racing was the Joe Show, as Joe Podolinsky captured both the heat and feature. Some great racing was going on behind Joe. Bob Betz brought the 14HER home 2nd, Karlee Kovacs was 3rd, Jacob Wiser 4th, John Dotten 5th, & Devin Black 6th.

O B has everyone huffing and puffing to figure out how to beat him in the Imperial Heights Garage Young Guns. O. B. Huff rolls on winning over Austin Ostrander, Dale Tuche, who led early and been strong all season 3rd, Michael Jackson 4th, and Luke Mongelli 5th.
Thank you to the great crowd of fans and racers who chose to spend their 4th of July at Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Motor Speedway! God Bless America & God Bless those who defend our freedom.

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