By MIKE MALLETT
Mark Smith gained a spot on Good Friday to allow him to walk out of Williams Grove Speedway with a runner-up finish behind a dominant performance Ryan Taylor. Smith tried to make moves on a couple of different occasions on restarts but was unable to get enough momentum to make a pass for the top position. He wasn’t going to push the issue so he settled for second.
“I’ll take it,” commented Smith afterwards. “This place is tough. It got single lane. I was just playing conservative. If I could get him (Taylor) on a restart that was about all the shot I had. I got close a couple times, but you are just fighting a losing battle and you’ll wear your stuff out. If you moved off the bottom you were done, especially down here (turns three and four), it was pretty gritty.”
Stutts Comes Through
Although it was definitely a tough early season track with drivers glued to the bottom of the racing surface, TJ Stutts was able to keep his No. 11 moving forward to nip Anthony Marcri at the line for the number three spot after starting back in ninth. Midway through the race he made the move to get by Macri only to give it away in the next corner. He was able to recover as Macri slowed coming to the checkered flag.
“I thought I gave it away,” said the driver of the Village Square Plaza/Hickory Run Orchards/CnB Chubby car. “I got to third there once and blew the corner trying to find something. It’s not bad for where we started. We made some gains. We survived tonight, that’s a good thing and we’ll try again tomorrow night.
Williams Grove Walkaways
It has not been a good start to the season for Brian Montieth at Williams Grove Speedway. Montieth entered turn one at the start of the 25-lap A-Main and ended up getting upside down for the second time this season. It was nearly the same spot he crashed on opening day. He collected Max McGhee who also flipped. Thankfully both drivers were not injured in the crash…
Several drivers pulled off after taking the green flag for the feature including Danny Dietrich, Tyler Esh, Freddie Rahmer, Cory Haas and Aaron Ott…
Lance Dewease’s night came to an end with a spin while running in the third position. Dewease tried to tuck underneath of Smith exiting turn four. He caught Smith’s left rear tire and went around. Smith had a bent rim but continued, Dewease elected to head to the pits rather than race on…
Greg Hodnett suffered a left rear flat. Hodnett slowed early in the main-event and came to a stop in turn one. He salvaged a ninth place finish at the conclusion of the night…
New Yorker Coleman Gulick had a tough night. Twice during the program he was in a transfer position only to suffer mechanical issues forcing him to head to the pits prematurely…
Cale Conley’s night was over before it started. Conley’s had problems in hot laps which ended his night.
