Sprint
Weekend race notes 2003-03-30
Mark Smith wins Selinsgrove Spring Thaw opener Friday. Camp Hill's Mark Smith picked up his first win of 2003 in Selinsgrove Speedway's Spring Thaw Season Opener Friday night. Seventh starting Jason Schmidt inherited the lead in the 15-lap ...
Published: Mar 31, 2003, 3:26 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Mark Smith wins Selinsgrove Spring Thaw opener Friday.
Camp Hill's Mark Smith picked up his first win of 2003 in Selinsgrove Speedway's Spring Thaw Season Opener Friday night.
Seventh starting Jason Schmidt inherited the lead in the 15-lap pro stock feature with two to go when race-leader Gary Beward was side-lined with a flat tire, giving Schmidt his second overall win at Selinsgrove.
Smith's win in the first of five Middleswarth Potato Chips 410 Sprint Car Series events at Selinsgrove was also the inaugural win for former-driver turned car-owner Shawn Keen of Carlisle.
"This is the second race in this car," said a happy Smith and Keen in victory lane. "To give Shawn his first win as a car owner...this is awesome."
Early on it didn't look like a Smith win. It looked more like a solid second place finish after the frontrow starter watched 12th-starting Greg Hodnett of Memphis, TN, easily drive around him for the lead on the sixth lap.
Hodnett was so fast that he began lapping top-10 cars midway through the 25 lap event while Smith, ninth starting Fred Rahmer, Todd Shaffer and Lance Dewease trailed.
But with seven laps to go Hodnett attempted to lap sixth-place running Sean Michael. But Michael, who was trying to keep from being lapped, attempted to move around another slower car in his path and drifted up into the path of the race-leading Hodnett. Contact resulted between the two cars, sending Hodnett into the outer guardrail sustaining front-end damage as a result. This handed the lead back to Smith on the race's first caution restart with Rahmer and Shaffer following.
Another lap later Rahmer pulled into the pits with a flat left rear tire moving Shaffer into the runner-up spot.
Smith then pulled away over the final laps to take the checkered and the win by .91 seconds over Shaffer. Fifth starting Dewease finished third followed by Brook Weibley and Michael.
Rounding out the top-10 were Todd Hestor, Len Thompson, Josh Wells, Jason Hagenbuch, and Lance Yonge.
"I think we were just as good as Greg but he got through traffic a lot better," said Smith. "I hated to see him (Hodnett) have bad luck."
"I didn't want to win a race that way. I could hang with him but he was getting through traffic better...that's experience."
In taking the win, Smith gave himself a leg up on his chances at claiming the $10,000 Chip Challenge in the Middleswarth Series. If one driver can win three of the five scheduled events he will take the extra 10G's.
"I want to get two more of these to get that $10,000 but its all luck," Smith added."You need a lot of luck and maybe I have some on my side this year."
Heats for the 28 sprint cars on hand went to Smith, Hodnett and Shaffer, with Wells winning the consolation. Todd Snook, Beward and Peanut Heintzelman took pro stock heats, with Mark Benson winning the consolation event.
WEEKEND CANCELLATIONS
Weekend rain and snow forced the cancellation of all local racing action on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday's cancellations included Lincoln Speedway, Selinsgrove Speedway, Trail-way Speedway, and Hagerstown Speedway. Sunday's cancellations included Williams Grove Speedway and Selinsgrove Raceway Park.
-bill meyer-
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Jarama: Race two report
Next article Tri County Speedway news 2003-03-29
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Williams
James Vowles explains request for review of F1 cost cap
Formula 1
Formula 1
Singapore GP
James Vowles explains request for review of F1 cost cap
Williams Racing is suing a local garage owner for £1million
Formula 1
Formula 1
Bahrain GP in Malaysia
Williams Racing is suing a local garage owner for £1million
Latest news
Fred Vasseur "not sure" if Red Bull is currently F1's best team
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
29 min
Fred Vasseur "not sure" if Red Bull is currently F1's best team
WSJ Report: NASCAR is building 80+ race cars for Days of Thunder sequel
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup 1 h
WSJ Report: NASCAR is building 80+ race cars for Days of Thunder sequel
Brennan Poole to leave Alpha Prime Racing; team owners 'disappointed' to see him go
NASCAR O'Reilly
NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly
Charlotte II
12 h
Brennan Poole to leave Alpha Prime Racing; team owners 'disappointed' to see him go
Oscar Piastri on his Singapore puncture: “Ironically, it probably helped”
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Singapore GP
13 h
Oscar Piastri on his Singapore puncture: “Ironically, it probably helped”
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe