![SP Kruz Kepner VL](https://www.imca.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/SP-Kruz-Kepner-VL-678x381.jpg)
By Frank Buhrman
SPRING RUN, Pa. (Aug. 17, 2024) – Sometimes you just have to stand out in the crowd.
The field for Saturday’s River Valley Builders Pennsylvania Sprint Series feature at Path Valley Speedway was hugging the inside of the quarter-mile bullring, so Kruz Kepner went high, made the outside work and earned the checkered flag for the 25-lap IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car event.
The six-year veteran worked hard to make his no. 19 ride work near the top of the high-banked oval, but it paid off, enabling him to slip past rookie Kyle Hart on lap 15. Hart was looking for his first PASS win in only his ninth start, but he couldn’t get his car through lapped traffic at the bottom.
Nor, for that matter, could anyone else, except the winner, who took the checkered flag by 1.363 seconds.
Drew Young passed Hart on the last lap to take second, with Hart finishing a career-best third.
Jarrett Cavalet came from ninth starting to finish fourth, with Austin Greenland posting a PASS career-best fifth.
The feature ran non-stop, taking less than five-and-a-half minutes to complete, which led to intense battling in the field. It also maintained a streak of clean action for the night: PASS racing only required one yellow flag, brought out when Paul Moyer spun the second heat race, collecting Jeff Paulson and Owen Dimm. All resumed racing, and every car among the 23 on hand completed its heat still running.
In the feature, Dimm fell to the rear before the start, indicating mechanical problems, and he pulled off after one lap. John Walp, who dropped out two-thirds of the way through the feature, was the only other non-finisher.
The race was only the second completed at Path Valley this year for the River Valley Builders PASS tour, with two rainouts, and the weather was threatening Saturday. The IMCA/RaceSaver teams have run at “the little track with the big action” more than anywhere else in their 26-year history, and they return two more times in 2024, on Sept. 21 and Oct. 19.
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