Heimbach Wins Bizarre One at the Port
PORT ROYAL, Pa. (April 30, 2016) – Blane Heimbach of Selinsgrove won what was a bizarre sprint car feature on Saturday night at Port Royal Speedway, scoring the 11th oval victory of his career worth $3,200.
Everett’s Wayne Dadetto blasted into the lead at the start of the 25-lap 410 sprint car main, holding control over polesitter Curt Stroup.
Logan Wagner started fourth in the field and got around Stroup for second on the second tour but Wagner wasn’t really able to run down the advantage between himself and Dadetto as the leader hit the backmarkers at the halfway point, holding a two second lead.
But past the halfway point, Dadetto started abruptly changing lanes around the speedway, forsaking the fast line that was working for him, instead choosing to run the bottom while at the same time eighth starter Doug Esh rolled into third spot.
Dadetto’s bid for a first-ever sprint car win went up in flames literally with 16 laps completed when he blew the motor on his mount at the end of the backchute, bringing out a red flag.
After clearing the track and cleaning the half-lap oil slick put down by the former leader, Logan Wagner assumed the lead however before action could resume, he pulled off the track with a flat tire, thus giving the lead to Esh for the restart.
Esh had Stroup following with Ryan Taylor third when the green reappeared and Stroup flexed a lot of muscle for the lead, driving underneath Esh for the lead for the next two laps before Esh suddenly blew a tire and backed hard into the outside third turn fence.
And with that, Richfield’s Stroup was the new leader with Ryan Taylor in second and now seventh starter Heimbach in third.
Heimbach powered around Taylor on the restart and then closed on leader Stroup.
The power that Stroup had shown a few laps earlier seemed to suddenly fail him with five laps to go as Heimbach made good time around the top side to blast into the lead with four laps to go to run to the win.
Stroup fell victim to Ryan Taylor in the last laps with Heimbach taking the win over Taylor by 1.316 seconds.
Stroup was third followed by Mike Wagner and Brock Zearfoss.
Sixth through 10th went to Aaron Ott,. Dylan Cisney, Kody Lehman, Darly Stimeling and Rodney Westhafer.
Heats went to Joey Hershey and Taylor.
Feature finish:
4/30/16
410 sprints, 25 laps: 1. Blane Heimbach, 2. Ryan Taylor, 3. Curt Stroup, 4. Mike Wagner, 5. Brock Zearfoss, 6. Aaron Ott, 7. Dylan Cisney, 8. Kody Lehman, 9. Daryl Stimeling, 10. Rodney Westhafer, 11. Steve Buckwalter, 12. Logan Wagner, 13. Doug Esh, 14. Wayne Dadetto, 15. Joey Hershey, 16. Tyler Bear
