HARRISBURG -- Hanover’s Tim Wagaman ended a two-year win drought at Trail-Way on Friday, claiming his first win of the year in the 25-lap 358 sprint car feature.
Chad Layton held off Steve Buckwalter to win his second Aumiller’s Insurance 410 sprint feature of the season Saturday at Port Royal Speedway. Brad McClelland, meanwhile, won the 410 sprint car feature Saturday at Lincoln Speedway.
Wagaman, driving the Blue Ribbon Exteriors/Hanover Toyota/Delco Signs #1, started fourth and moved past outside front row starter Joe Trone, Jr. to move into second on lap three. For the next 14 laps, Wagaman chased polesitter and race-long leader Hoff before making the race-winning pass with an outside move in turns three and four of lap 17. “It’s been about two years now, and this win is long overdue,” said Wagaman after the popular win, according to the track's website. “I kinda’ got into Shane (Hoff) earlier in the race, and I hope that didn’t cause his (last turn) spin.”
Hoff ran second until spinning and coming to a stop in the final turn.
Austin Hogue came from eighth-starting spot to finish second, with ninth-starting Brad McClelland third, 12th-starting and hard charger Isaac Sneeringer fourth, and Mike Bittinger fifth.
Layton started second in Port Royal's 25-lap sprint car feature on Saturday and while the record books would show him leading every lap when the race was over, he was highly pressured for the win during the race by the bunch that finished behind him.
First, it was fourth-starter Danny Holtgraver that gave it a shot; as the frontrunners entered lapped traffic with just five laps down on the smooth, fast surface. But as Holtgraver took his shots at Layton’s lead, he gave way to polesitter Steve Buckwalter with eight laps down, as the Royersford driver pulled into second spot.
The front four cars of Layton, Buckwalter, Holtgraver and Heimbach were under a blanket in traffic one lap shy of the halfway point when the race's first caution flag unfurled, clearing the track for Layton.
It took until lap 18 for the frontrunners to again enter traffic -- and as soon as they did, the trio behind Layton began again rapidly closing the gap.
With five to go in the event, Buckwalter was close enough to Layton to begin searching for a way around and as Layton battled traffic, Buckwalter applied enough pressure to force the leader to pull a make-or-break move to put Luke Bowey a lap down with two laps left.
But Layton’s attempted slide job on Bowey in the third corner failed when Bowey was forced up the racetrack and into the outside wall, sending him flipping and bringing out the red flag.
Fifth-place runner Greg Hodnett got a piece of Bowey’s flipping car and ended up sidelined because of the incident.
Brad McClelland led two other former micro-sprint drivers to the checkered flag Saturday in scoring his second career Lincoln win on BAPS Auto Paints & Supply Night in the Pigeon Hills.
“Some of the other guys bellyache about the roughness, but this big guy likes it,” said McClelland upon exiting his B&D Truck Hoist/SCC Trucking #6 in victory lane, “I was actually surprised the track was this heavy. This humidity brings it back out.”
“Those guys (Kendall and Glatfelter) are young, and want it just as bad as anybody else,” continued McClelland, “Kendall’s coming around here. He’s one of the gassers, and I’m starting to grow out of the stage, but there hard to pass and track position was important tonight.”
McClelland started fourth and was still in third chasing polesitter Robbie Kendall and Tim Glatfelter when a red flag came out on lap 11 for fourth-place Aaron Ott, who slammed into the outside guardrail trying to avoid a spinning Hunter Mackison.
McClelland caught Glatfelter on the restart, and was second when the red came out a lap later for points leader Danny Dietrich, who flipped onto his side in turn four of lap 12. He then passed Kendall for the lead on lap 13, just before the final red of the event came out for Brian Leppo and Alan Krimes, who got together and flipped simultaneously in turn two of lap 14.
“Robbie was taking the starts there real slow, and my guys were saying that the starts are where you gotta’ get him here,” said McClelland, according to the track's website. “ We put a log of gear in the car tonight so we go on the starts like that. That helped, and once I got out in clean air I could run it a lot harder.”
The race went non-stop the rest of the way, with McClelland crossing 1.76 seconds in front of Kendall. Glatfelter hung on for third, with Jim Siegel and Cory Haas completing the top five. Sixth through tenth were BAPS driver Brent Marks, Fred Rahmer, Chad Criswell, 20th-starting Ryan Bohlke, and Steve Owings.
Video used in this report is courtesy of www.SportsPlusVideo.com and Lynn Schaeffer Productions. Information provided by Trail-Way, Port Royal and Lincoln Speedways, respectively.
