pennsylvaniasprintseries Archives

Hendershot repeats at Path Valley, Melair wins PASS make-up feature

By Frank Buhrman SPRING RUN, Pa. (Sept. 18) – Veteran Donnie Hendershot has developed a fondness for Path Valley Speedway . . . and for winning. Over the years, the driver of the family-backed no. 31 had scored the majority of his best finishes at BAPS Motor Speedway, but in May he earned his first career victory at Path Valley. Just four months later, he returned to the Spring Run bullring and earned IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car win number two. On a track where passing was at a premium, Hendershot slipped by early leader Mike Alleman and held off a charge from Austin Reed to capture the regularly scheduled Pennsylvania Sprint Series feature. After a lap nine caution, Reed got past Alleman and began applying pressure to Hendershot, but the Friday night Williams Grove winner wasn’t able to complete the pass for a weekend double, and Hendershot crossed the finish line .343 seconds ahead. Earlier, Dom Melair took the lead from Jimmy White and scored a win in the conclusion of a feature postponed by [Read More]

Reed is good at The Grove for first PASS win

By Frank Buhrman MECHANICSBURG, Pa. (Sept. 18) – On a bad night for a number of other drivers, Austin Reed tamed a difficult Williams Grove Speedway track surface and collected his first win with Pennsylvania Sprint Series in Friday’s Jack Gunn Memorial program. Reed returned to racing with the IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Cars late last season and has been competitive this season. He drew the pole for Friday’s 20-lap feature following a fourth place heat finish, and after two disastrous attempts to start the race, took the early lead on the third effort and held off a determined Devin Adams to lead all the way for the victory. Adams made several attempts to take the lead and drew even with Reed coming out of turn two on lap 16, but Reed pulled away on the backstretch and held on for the win. Passing was at a premium on a heavy and narrow track but the RaceSaver drivers managed an impressive amount of it in their feature. Unfortunately, it also caused an inordinate amount of carnage [Read More]

By George, Riden ends nine year PASS drought!

By Frank Buhrman YORK HAVEN, Pa. (Aug. 29) – George Riden had been trying to get his IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car out to the track more often. It paid off Sunday night, when the Elizabethtown veteran won his first Pennsylvania Sprint Series race in nine years, taking the 20-lap feature at BAPS Motor Speedway. Riden drew the outside pole and took the lead from polesitter Drew Young on lap three. He then fought off a ferocious challenge from Dom Melair, whose efforts to go past the leader fell just short. “Work has gotten pretty busy,” Riden said in victory lane. “Racing had to be put on the backburner but these guys over here have been working their butts off and we finally found some speed. It’s been a long time, man, so I’m just happy, just happy.” The win was Riden’s seventh with PASS but his first since Sept. 29, 2112. All six previous wins were at Path Valley Speedway. The veteran racer was a PASS regular from 2005-13 but has run sporadically since then [Read More]

PASS entries total 46, red hot Bard wins at Port Royal

By Frank Buhrman PORT ROYAL, PA. (Aug. 7) – Garrett Bard won his fifth Pennsylvania Sprint Series race in his last sixth starts Saturday night, taking advantage of his second straight front-row starting position draw and fighting off stout challenges from Kenny Heffner and Tyler Snook to top the 20-lap feature at Port Royal Speedway. The defending national champion Bard received his final and most serious challenge on a late restart with six laps to go. Rookie Snook dove to the inside and briefly claimed the lead, but Bard’s outside power was enough to return him to the top spot and the win. Kenny Heffner also challenged earlier in the race and re-took second place from Snook in the waning laps. Ken Duke and Dom Melair rounded out the top five. Forty-six IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Cars contended. Kassidy Kreitz earned the night’s hard charger award, coming from the 21st starting position to 12th after winning her “B” main. This week PASS has two scheduled races. On Friday the Sprinters are part of the Night of Power [Read More]

Rookie schools IMCA RaceSaver foes at Bloomsburg

By Frank Buhrman BLOOMSBURG, Pa. (July 25) – Rookie Zack Bealer found a way around Bloomsburg Fair Raceway that nobody else could match and scored his first win in a full-sized sprint car in Sunday’s IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car feature co-sanctioned by the Pennsylvania Sprint Series and the Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series. The former micro-sprint driver, running regularly with MASS, already had amassed two top-five finishes and four top-10’s in just six starts, including a seventh at Bridgeport Speedway in his first RaceSaver start, the season-opening co-sanctioned event for both groups. He announced early Sunday he might be ready to do even better at Bloomsburg, coming from ninth starting position to finish fourth in his heat. That was the best charge by any driver in the preliminaries. Then he drew the pole for the 25-lap feature, the first ever for full-size, winged sprints on the Bloomsburg track, built earlier this year inside the horse track that was the site of many classic open-wheel races beginning nearly a century ago and ending in the 1980s. In a [Read More]

Bard bounces back with Path Valley PASS win

By Frank Buhrman SPRING RUN, Pa. (July 24) – Garrett Bard put disappointment behind him and scored a convincing victory Saturday in the Pennsylvania Sprint Series 25-lap feature event at Path Valley Speedway. Bard had endured a rare failure-to-qualify Friday at Big Diamond Speedway, but racing life was clearly back in balance 24 hours later. After a sixth-place start in his heat, Bard finished second, then drew the pole position for the feature and led all the way, taking the IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car win by 1.391 seconds over Austin Reed. The win was Bard’s fifth of 2021 and 20th in a PASS career that now spans just over two years. It was his third career win at Path Valley. In victory lane, Bard said he welcomed the race’s two late cautions, because the handle on his car was going away and the restarts took him out of heavy traffic. Reed, who had started eighth, hung with Bard on the final restarts but couldn’t get around and fell just short of his first win of [Read More]

Rare weekend tripleheader on tap for PASS

By Frank Buhrman POTTSVILLE, Pa. – The Pennsylvania Sprint Series will run a rare tripleheader this weekend, with three races on the schedule, including stops at the series’ oldest track and its newest. On Friday night, PASS will join the Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series for a co-sanctioned event at Big Diamond Speedway. On Saturday, the IMCA RaceSaver Sprinters will visit the quarter-mile Path Valley Speedway bullring, now in its 22nd season of hosting PASS racing. Then on Sunday, the new Bloomsburg Fair Raceway will host the PASS and MASS sprinters for the first time ever. At Big Diamond, pit gates will open at 5 p.m. and grandstands at 5:30, with warm-ups starting at 7:15 and racing at 7:45. Adult admission is $22 ($20 for seniors; kids under 16 and active duty military with ID free). Pit admission is $40 ($30 for PASS and MASS members). This is the first PASS race at Big Diamond since 2015 and it will produce a new winner for the series, since no previous PASS winner is still active in RaceSaver [Read More]

Bard is bullish in PASS win at Path Valley

By Frank Buhrman SPRING RUN, Pa. (June 26) – It’s not that Garrett Bard doesn’t race well at Path Valley Speedway. In his last seven starts there, he had finished second four times, third once and fourth once. But his only previous win in a full-sized sprint car had come in September of 2019, and since then he had won 14 Pennsylvania Sprint Series features, plus non-PASS victories, at other tracks. That picture got brighter Saturday night when Bard emerged from a furious three-way battle to win the 25-lap IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car feature at the quarter-mile Spring Run bullring. Bard was swapping the lead in traffic with hard-luck Kenny Heffner, with Jared Zionkowski looking for an opening, when Heffner dove to the inside on lap 23 and spun. Freed of traffic after the ensuing caution, Bard held off Zionkowski for the win, his second of the season. Zionkowski held on for the runner-up finish, .895 seconds behind Bard but ahead of Steve Kenawell, prior Path Valley winner Mikell McGee and John Walp. The PASS [Read More]

Melair dominates IMCA RaceSaver Sprints at Hagerstown

By Jim Haines HAGERSTOWN, Md. (June 19) – Nobody watching Mike Melair would ever have known this would become his first win in an IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car victory Saturday at Hagerstown Speedway. Thirty cars vied in the event co-sanctioned by the Virginia Sprint Series, Pennsylvania Sprint Series and Laurel Highland Sprint Series and Melair tuned up for the main event with a dominating heat win. Melair and Jason Roush then paced the feature field to green with Melair out front up top and Mikell McGee falling in behind before a car got a little too sideways causing a few cars to get together. Once back to green, Melair was off again followed by McGee and soon Ryan Lynn was chasing them down in third. Lap after lap, Melair stayed smooth, never putting a wheel wrong even as traffic came up. Melair’s brother Domenic came through the field and was soon on Lynn for third and using the brother’s high line to do it. With laps winding down, Mike Melair and McGee were still staying [Read More]

Three RaceSaver series run Saturday at Hagerstown

HAGERSTOWN, Md. – The Pennsylvania Sprint Series will join two other IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car series this Saturday night for a Father’s Day Weekend special program at Hagerstown Speedway. PASS, the host Virginia Sprint Series and the Laurel Highlands Sprint Series will vie for supremacy June 19 on the half-mile track alongside Conococheague Creek in Washington County, Md. Four weeks ago, PASS regular Dave Grube invaded a VSS/LHSS co-sanctioned race at Hagerstown and came away with the victory. An earlier RaceSaver date was rained out. In 2019, VSS stalwart Jerald Harris was a winner, along with former PASS drivers Zach Newlin and Scott Ellerman. A large field of cars is expected Saturday, including Grube and the last two IMCA RaceSaver national champions, Ken Duke and Garrett Bard. Local entries are expected to include Donnie Hendershot, a PASS winner earlier this season, and Dylan Shatzer, a former LHSS winner at Hagerstown and a winner this season at Hesston Speedway. It will be Kids’ Hot Dog Night at the speedway, plus Dads will get $5 off general [Read More]