Stevie Smith
Stevie Smith earned his third victory in four Pennsylvania Speed Week starts Wednesday night at Hagerstown Speedway. (PennLive photo)
HAGERSTOWN, MD: Fred Rahmer spent years dominating Pennsylvania Speed Week and even though he isn't a driver anymore, the outcome hasn't changed.
Speed Week still belongs to the Sprint Car legend. The difference now, Rahmer is an owner and Stevie Smith is his hired gun.
Smith captured the first two legs of Speed Week in impressive fashion. At Hagerstown Speedway Wednesday night, the Oklahoma driver took it up a notch.
Greg Hodnett and Danny Dietrich were putting on a passing clinic in the 30-lap event. But with seven laps to go, Smith came out of nowhere and drove past both drivers to earn his third Speed Week victory in four events.
"This is a little bitter-sweet," Rahmer said. "I wish my boy would have had a chance to race, but I think I have the best driver by far in Pennsylvania standing in front of that car.
"I didn't think the car looked that good, but he drove the hell out of it."
A pair of red flags marred the beginning of the race. The second one involved Rahmer's son, Freddie, in what was a vicious crash.
Hodnett got the jump on the initial start. Before a lap was scored, Anthony Fiore's car veered into the inside wall on the backstretch and spread debris across the speedway.
Cars bunched up on the frontstretch on the second attempt at a start. Glenndon Forsythe flipped hard and so did the younger Rahmer, who cleared the inside wall and came to rest on all four wheels close to his trailer. Both drivers crawled from their mangled cars and were OK.
When the race finally went green, Hodnett grabbed the lead over Dietrich, who was pinned along the bottom of the speedway.
Dietrich started to close and got a run on lap 10. Hodnett shut the door, but the Gettysburg driver wasn't about to go away.
Hodnett got hung up behind lapped traffic on lap 12. That allowed Dietrich to nail the bottom and sail into the lead coming out of Turn 4.
But Hodnett didn't go away. He moved up to the cushion and built momentum off the fourth corner to go side-by-side with Dietrich at the completion of lap 13.
Over the next four laps, Hodnett and Dietrich exchanged the lead six more times. Finally, Hodnett was able to open up some breathing room, but it was wiped out when Sheldon Haudenschild rolled to a stop on lap 24.
"I always think I have a chance," Smith said. "I never give up. That's my problem. We just got a good break."
And Smith took advantage of it.
Smith ran in the third position the first 23 laps. He was close to the leaders, but he never mounted a serious challenge.
On the lap 24 restart, Smith got a huge run on the outside of Dietrich in Turns 1 and 2 to take second. He rocketed down the backstretch and was two car-lengths off the back nerf bar of Hodnett heading into Turn 3.
Smith stalked the leader. He got a run down the frontstretch and pulled a wicked slider into Turns 1 and 2 to pass Hodnett and take the top spot on lap 25.
"I was able to get beside Danny and get some clean air," Smith said. "That left me enter Turn 1 harder.
"I got a good run and was able to get on Greg's bumper. I didn't want to waste any time, because I didn't want to give him a chance to block me. So, I just went straight across the corner."
Hodnett didn't go away, but he couldn't mount a challenge over the last five circuits and had to settle for second.
Dietrich had a good car but was relegated to a third-place finish. Lucas Wolfe and Aaron Ott completed the top five.
"I just couldn't get the car rotated right," Hodnett said. "We weren't terrible, but every time I tried to pinch it, the car got loose. I just tried to float it and do the best I can.
"I thought maybe I had a cushion with the lapped car, and I tried to float [the car] across and keep it moving. We did that, but because I was doing that, I lost so much straightaway speed and that hurt us."
Smith leads the Speed Week points with 657 markers heading into Thursday's race at Lincoln Speedway. Dietrich is second with 590. Hodnett (535), Wolfe (527) and Alan Krimes (446) complete the top five.