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August has been a good month of racing for Luke Horning.
The Gloversville Pro Stock pilot raced his way to seven victories, including four straight at Glen Ridge Motorsports Park, back-to-back wins at Utica-Rome Speedway and his first career feature win at Brewerton Speedway.
One of the wins at The Ridge, the win at Brewerton and a seventh-place finish at Lebanon Valley Speedway came on the DIRTcar Pro Stock Series Tour.
“Winning two out of three on the Series is pretty cool,” Horning said after his win Sunday at The Ridge. “I haven’t done great at these big races here [Glen Ridge]. It seems like I always want to defend our home turf and I’m hanging out fifth or six with a bad redraw, so tonight was a good night.”
In Sunday’s victory, “Cousin Luke” passed fellow Playfab chassis driver/engineer Shane Playford and early-race leader Shane Playford for the win. Playford held off Pete Stefanski for the runner-up finish, while Devon Camenga and Josh Coonradt completed the top five in the 20-car field.
Also Sunday Jordan McCreadie picked up the victory in the 358-modified feature to extend his lead to 34 points over Lance Willix in the standings with three-point races on the schedule.
After a late-race caution wiped out Tavien Blowers’ full straightaway lead, Zach Buff used the restart with five laps to go to his advantage to get the lead and hold off Blowers for the 602 Crate Sportsman victory. Cody Ochs placed third over Brendan Gibbons and Andrew Buff.
Tyler Bobar held off A.J. Greco and Adam Fusco for the Limited Sportsman feature win, while Jason Samrov led all but one lap of the 15-lap street stock main and A.J. Labreada and Braxton Dembek won the All-Star and Junior Slingshot features respectively.
The 4-cylinder Mini Stocks ran a pair of features Sunday night to make up for an early-season rainout.
Billy Hillman and Jay Ingersoll won the dual cam features, while Ken Hollenbeck and Bruce Liddle collected the single cam features.
GLEN RIDGE MOTORSPORTS PARK RESULTS
Sunday
DIRTcar Racing 358-Modifieds — Jordan McCreadie, Lance Willix, Brian Calabrese, Brett Graham, Carter Gibbons, Brian Pessolano, CJ Castelletti, Dale Gray, Chris Bisson, Tucker O’Connor, William August, Jim Becker, Richie Price, Aaron Jacobs, Garrett Poland.
Classic Muscle Parts DIRTcar Racing 602 Crate Sportsman — Zach Buff, Tavien Blowers, Cody Ochs, Brendan Gibbons, Andrew Buff, Taylor Wason, Tony Farone, Butchie Irwin, Mike Jeske, Ricky Quick, Steve Roberts.
Yurkewecz Auto Crushers DIRTcar Racing Pro Stocks — Luke Horning, Shane Playford, Pete Stefanski, Devon Camenga, Josh Coonradt, Chuck Dumblewski, Chad Jeseo, Jay Fitzgerald, Ivan Joslin, Johnny Rivers, Phil Defigilio, Slater Baker, Kyle Hoard, Shawn Perez Jr., Ken Griffin Jr., Richard Spencer, Steve Cosselman, Doug Sheely, Caden Dumblewski (DNS), Chuck McSpirit (DNS).
Limited Sportsman — Tyler Bobar, AJ Greco, Adam Fusco, Sloan Cherko, Connor Prokop, Zach Graham, Kristen Swartz, Zach Welch, Chayton Young, Lucas Duncan, Colton Emigh, Blake Patrick, Zach McSpirit, Connor Hearn, James Hinman Jr.
Street Stocks — Jason Samrov, Josh Samrov, Adam Tranka, Matt Mosher, Rob VanAernam.
Leatherstocking Credit Union DIRTcar Racing Mini Stocks (Dual Cam) — Billy Hillman, Jay Ingersol, Kerrie Hollenbeck, Damian Ward, John Napoli, William Cook Jr., Brian Blanck, Nicholas Bunn.
Leatherstocking Credit Union DIRTcar Racing Mini Stocks (Single Cam) — Ken Hollenbeck, Daniel Joubert, Keith Chorba, Stephen Burka, Jamie Warner, Jack Minery, Bruce Liddle, Blaze Post, Brandon Tyler (DNS).
Leatherstocking Credit Union DIRTcar Racing Mini Stocks (Dual Cam) (Makeup feature) — Jay Ingersoll, Damian Ward, John Napoli, Jamie Warner, Nicholas Bunn (DNS), Brian Blanck (DNS), Gina Voris (DNS).
Leatherstocking Credit Union DIRTcar Racing Mini Stocks (Single Cam) (Makeup feature) — Bruce Liddle, Keith Chorba, Jack Minery, Blaze Post (DNS), Zach McSpirit (DNS).
Northeast Paving and Sealcoat All-Star Slingshots — AJ Albreada, Dan Ballard, Brett Putnam, Dave Viall, Chris Darrow, Jaden Pierce, Justin House, Devin Pierce, Zach Mecca, Ryan Whittaker, Alexandrine Boisvert, Scott Sprague.
Northeast Paving and Sealcoat Junior Slingshots — Braxton Dembek, EJ Hatch, Bodie Marks, Mason Gray, Lucas Cole, Tavin Wingard, James Hatch Jr., Braxton Martin, Kolton Gamble, Sullivan Dickey, Aiden Wingard, Addi Pangman, Izzy Pangman, Colton White, Alexandria Cosselman, Noah Commander, Alex Viall.
HOHENFORST RECORDS BEST FINISH AT MALTA
Josh Hohenforst made the decision to switch from his long-time home track at Fonda Speedway to run Friday nights at Albany-Saratoga.
Adjusting to racing at The Great Race Place has been a challenge leading to a few DNFs and mid-pack finishes.
Last Friday, Hohenforst made the most of a good starting spot to record his best finish of the season, finishing second to Jeremy Pitts in the 35-lap modified feature.
Earlier in the race program, Hohenforst won his first heat race of the season and earned a spot in the handicapping for the feature.
“We were pretty good on the top, then it got really dirty toward the end,” Hohenforst said of his feature run. “You could see the stuff rolling across the racetrack. He [Pitts] was fading off, and we were closing a little bit toward the end. I could feel we had a left rear tire going down. Fortunately, it went down after we got in the pits.”
Having a good run in the heat races has become essential for the drivers this season to earn a spot in the handicapping for a starting spot in the feature.
“Track position is everything here,” Hohenforst said. “Everybody is so good and so close over here. That’s the biggest thing. It is darker over here than at Fonda. The last two weeks in a row, early in the race, between the dust and being dark, I drove off the backstretch twice because I was following the guy in front of me, and he went off the backstretch, too.”
BUFF EARNS CENTRAL REGION TITLE
Andrew Buff has been crowned the Central Region champion in the DIRTcar Sportsman Championship Series.
Buff scored a win at Land of Legends Speedway on June 24 and four days later, finished fifth at Can-Am Speedway to earn the Central Region Championship by 10 points over Tyler Corcoran.
Nick Heywood (Eastern Region), Cody McPherson (Western Region), and David Rogers (Northern Region) joined Buff in earning DIRTcar Sportsman Regional Championships.
FRIESEN WINS AT GEORGETOWN
Stewart Friesen raced from last to first in his heat race, and followed it up with a seventh-to-first run to win the Short Track Super Series Battle at the Beach Tuesday night at Georgetown Speedway in Delaware.
Ryan Godown followed Friesen under the checkers, with Matt Sheppard third, Ryan Krachun fourth and Brandon Grosso fifth.
LEBANON VALLEY DROPS STREET STOCKS
Late Wednesday afternoon, Lebanon Valley Speedway announced it is dropping the Street Stock division from its race program.
The statement read, “After two meetings within the management, it has been decided that we will not be continuing with our street stock division. There were many factors that came into our decision with this division. Moving forward, we will be creating a new ‘limited pro stock’ division for the 2024 season. We will be working in the next few weeks to establish a clear set of rules for this division. We would like to thank all the drivers within the division for all the many Saturday nights of competition throughout the many years.”
HIGH-PROFILE LABOR DAY WEEKEND RACES
Albany-Saratoga Speedway wraps up its track championships for the modified, pro stock and sportsman divisions this Friday with a featured $3,000-to-win modified main event.
Lebanon Valley Speedway hosts the prestigious Mr. Dirt Track USA 100-lap showdown for the big block DIRTcar modifieds on Saturday.
Utica-Rome Speedway will host a pair of race programs this weekend.
Friday night Utica-Rome hosts a regular race program and will wrap up the track championships for the Pro Stock, 4-cylinder and Slingshot divisions. All other titles will be decided on a special Sept. 8 race program.
Sunday, racing returns to Utica-Rome featuring the Short Track Super Elite Series 50-lap, $12,000-to-win New Yorker for big block modifieds. The New Yorker will pay $2,000 to the 10th-place finisher and $1,000 to take the green.
The Limited Sportsman, Pro Stock and Allstar Slingshots and Junior Slingshot divisions are also on Sunday’s race card.
Gates open at 4 p.m., with hot laps at 6 p.m. and racing at 7 p.m. Grandstand admission is $30.
Categories: Sports
