York's Adam Wilt won the 25-lap sprint car feature Friday night at Williams Grove Speedway and Scott Geesey won the 20-lap 358 sprint main event.
It was the second victory of the season for Wilt. Wilt held off Fered Rahmer on a restart and kept the eight-time track champion behind him until a lap 15 restart gave Rahmer a second chance.
Wilt, 22, didn't waver, though. He led the final eleven laps.
Rahmer settled for second. Greg Hodnett, who started 10th, was third.
Lance Dewease of Fayetteville led flag-to-flag for his $5,000 victory in Saturday night's 30-lap 27th Annual National Open for 410 sprint cars at Selinsgrove Speedway. The win was the 11th of his career at the half-mile oval, including a previous Open victory in 2002. Driving the Catoctin Motorsports / Advanced Development Services No. 30C, Dewease celebrated his fifth win overall in 2009.
Todd Shaffer of Millerstown, who shared the front row with Dewease for the start of the main event, was the night's fast qualifier with a lap time of 16.368 seconds. Shaffer was seeking his fifth career win in the Open, which would have tied him with Fred Rahmer of Salfordville as the only two drivers to win the track's marquee event five times, but his No. 88 erupted into flames from a blown engine on the backstretch with two laps remaining.
Jason Smith of Williamsport ended his championship season by capturing his sixth win of the season in the 15-lap pro stock feature.
At the drop of the green flag, fourth-place starter Mark Smith made an exciting pass to take the lead at the start/finish line. By the time the field reached the first turn, however, second-place starter Lance Dewease throttled into the front spot with an inside pass by Smith. The caution flag unfurled on lap two when TJ Winegardner stopped his sprinter on the track.
On the ensuing restart, Dewease continued to set the pace with Smith,third-place starter Brian Leppo, polesitter Todd Shaffer, and fifth-place starter Pat Cannon in pursuit. By lap seven the field began to encounter slower traffic. At the midway point of the race, Leppo advanced to second and set his sites on Dewease in traffic. Two laps later, Cannon rocketed into third as a high-speed chase unfolded for the top five positions.
Sixth-place starter Greg Hodnett and 12th-place starter Cody Darrah began to show speed during the last 10 ten laps of the race as they entered into the top five.
The suspense intensified as Leppo and Cannon began to reel in Dewease in lapped traffic in the final laps. At the finish, Dewease was victorious by a mere 1.3 seconds over Leppo, Cannon, Hodnett, and Darrah.
Cannon, a seven-time 358 sprint car winner at the track this season, turned in the fastest lap of the race on lap six with a time of 17.130 seconds.
Some information used in this story was provided by Williams Grove Speedway and Selinsgrove Speedway. Video is courtesy of Lynn Schaeffer Productions and www.SportsPlusVideo.com.
