Rhodes repeats as PASS ‘Power’ winner

Results, Sprint Car

Zach Rhodes was back in victory lane Friday night when the Pennsylvania Sprint Series returned to Path Valley Speedway for the Night of Power show. (Photo by Frank Buhrman)

By Frank Buhrman

SPRING RUN, Pa. (July 19, 2024) – Thanks to a couple of rainouts, it took the River Valley Builders Pennsylvania Sprint Series until midseason to make its first appearance at its oldest stop, the quarter-mile Path Valley Speedway bullring, but Zach Rhodes and his fellow IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car competitors made sure the large crowd remembered why PASS keeps coming back.

The McVeytown driver fought his way past Mike Alleman to take the lead with five laps remaining in the 25-lap feature and won the PASS portion of the special Dr. Crouse’s Night of Power program for the second consecutive year.

The margin of victory was three-quarters of a second.

Doug Dodson, who charged from 10th starting, also got past Alleman on the next-to-last lap and finished second, while Alleman, who was oh-so-close to his first feature victory since taking his only career checkered flag at this track 23 years ago, came home third.

Jeff Weaver came home fourth and Jerald Harris was fifth. Kenny Heffner claimed the W.C. Eshenaur & Son Hard Charger Award, advancing 11 positions after starting 21st.

Rhodes had shown his potential with his 2.5-second win over Weaver in the first heat race and when he drew the outside front row starting position, he became an obvious favorite, but it was Alleman, to his inside, who took the early lead and held a slim-but-significant margin.

The leaders began to encounter traffic on lap seven but Kruz Kepner stopped on the backstretch and brought out a caution less than a minute later, giving Alleman an open track after he executed a strong restart.

By lap 15, traffic again became an issue and Rhodes began to challenge for the lead. On the 19th lap, he slipped past Alleman’s no. 46, but the veteran RaceSaver competitor, who ran in the series’ first event in 1999, came back to grab the top spot half a lap later.

In the same spot on lap 20, Rhodes slipped past again, and this time his lead held.

The 17-lap green-flag run saw wholesale changes of position throughout the field. At the end, 19 of the 24 starters remained on the track.

The win was Rhodes’ fifth with PASS (he has wins with other RaceSaver groups as well), second of the season, and second at Path Valley. All have come since his alliance with Weaver Racing last season, when the team finished second in River Valley Builders PASS championship points.

The tour is scheduled to return to Path Valley on August 17.

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