By Dino Oberto,
Speedway Staff

LEHIGHTON, PA - Reigning Mahoning Valley Speedway champion Chip Santee of Palmerton was cruising way ahead of the pack during Saturday night’s Firecracker Modified 100, assuring him of a dominating win until a caution waved four laps from the end.

That set up a three car shootout between him, Earl Paules and Bup Dreher in the race to the checkered flag. Santee, however, was not about to give up his shot at winning.

After several tough weeks and near misses, Santee put to use his years of experience at the quarter mile and was able to hold off his combaters for the biggest win of his career as well as biggest payday, $3000.

Bobby Jones was fourth and Billy Pauch, Jr., in his first Mahoning start, completed the top five.

“This is a race I wanted. I’ve won a 50-lapper and a 75-lapper here. We’ve been close so many times to getting one of these 100-lappers and now we got it,” said Santee who notched his 19th career modified win and 21st overall.

Santee was the fifth different driver to lead the race when he took over the top spot from Jones after a lap-59 restart. With the next 37 laps going caution free, Santee was able to steadily pull away from everyone.

Driving for car owner Terry Zacharias, there was little doubt that his first win of the season was going to be a runaway victory. That was until the fateful final caution.

In typical fashion of all extra distance races at Mahoning, the outcome came down to a shootout. After being on the bad side of luck as well as knocking on the door of victory, Santee took a scant .149-second margin win.

Time trials locked the top 12 into the field with Jones setting the quickest lap at 9.731. After a redraw Pete Brittain picked the pole with Zane Zeiner alongside.

At the outset it was Zeiner outgunning Brittain for the lead. He stayed at the front until lap 10 when he suddenly dropped off the track due to mechanical gremlins.

Brittain took over but his stint as the leader lasted only one lap as he got bumped out while having Don Wagner and Tom Flanagan nipping on his heels.

Point leader Wagner was now in charge and over the course of the next dozen laps he had Jones and Dreher constantly making advances on him.

On a lap-24 restart Jones was finally able to get around Wagner as did Dreher. Santee, who started tenth, had also been on the charge as he was running third. He unseated Dreher for second on lap28 and then went to work on catching Jones.

Jones was showing why he was the quickest car during time trials as he was very strong during his lead run. As for Santee, he caught a break on lap 59 when the caution waved. It was on the two-abreast restart that he was able to speed past Jones. Afterwards he went into cruise control and began a blistering pace. Meanwhile Jones and Dreher continued to dogfight for second.

Paules, who had pitted during the lap-59 caution, was picking his way through the pack and with ten laps reaming joined the fray with Jones and Dreher. It looked as though the race was going to be a battle for second as Santee had a commanding lead heading into the final laps.

However, with four laps to go his huge advantage came to a halt when the caution waved for a minor back-marker incident.

When the green came back Santee had Paules and Dreher breathing all over him forcing him into a heavy defensive mode. Hungry for a win he wasn’t about to give up as he held his ground en-route to the popular triumph.

“I didn’t know just how big of a lead I had or who was behind me on the restart but when we went back to green someone gave me a little shooter so I figured it was time to get up and go,” said Santee.

“I wasn’t giving this thing up for anything tonight. I’d like to thank Terry Zacharias and his family. He called me two days before the season started and asked me if I wanted to drive his car and it’s great to get this win for him.”

Paules’ exciting runner-up finish was a great return to Mahoning and prior to the race he said he wanted to give the fans a show. That he did.

“We were trying. We had a little stagger issue in the beginning and I had to come in (pits) a couple times and after that the car was really good. I didn’t realize we were going three wide near the end,” said Paules.

“I was getting a little dizzy from not being here all year. I want to thank the fans for coming out. We try to put on a show and that’s what we’re here for.”

In Late Model action it was a pair of rookies that vied for the win and in an exciting dash to the checker, Fern Glen’s Travis Fisher used a lap-17 restart to get past then leader Frankie Althouse en-route to his career first Late Model and Mahoning win.

Althouse had everything going his way after he took the lead from Mike VanFossen on a lap-10 restart. Despite a rash of yellows, he was holding his own while Fisher was maintaining second spot.

However, the final caution did not fare well for Althouse. As the field was coming up to speed on the restart, Fisher got a nudge from behind. That forward momentum caused him to tap the back of Althouse who then backed off the throttle.

There was then an opening on the bottom groove and Fisher immediately seized the opportunity as did Geno Steigerwalt. Fisher remained focused from there as he drove to victory.

Althouse had to settle for a disappointing third while Paul Koehler, Jr., and Bandit Christman rounded out the top five.

Seasoned veteran Lonnie Behler of Palmerton not only won for the first time this season with the Street Stocks, but he also reached career milestone as well with his 40th overall feature win.

Starting from the pole Behler stayed ahead the entire distance while Kristy Morone did a fine job of holding down second.

In Pro4 Late Models Bethlehem’s Chris Kuronya raced to his second win of the year. Sixth starting Kuronya took the lead from Kris Gruber on lap five and from there remained smooth and steady as he earned his 15th career class win.

Factory Stock point leader Jason Frey of Lehighton scored his third win of the season. Starting third, Frey took the lead from Duane Eidem on lap four and never looked back.

Brian Kunkel of Lehighton raced to his second straight 4-Cylinder Stock win. Freundt grabbed the lead from his teammate, Dan Freundt with three laps to go. He then held back Gene Bowers for the verdict.

Wes Gilbert of Preston, MD cruised to victory in the 4c Super Mod event.

RESULTS

Modifieds (100 Laps): 1.Chip Santee 2.Earl Paules 3.Bup Dreher 4.Bobby Jones 5.Billy Pauch, Jr. 6.John Markovic 7.Mike Quinn 8.Rick Kirkendall 9.Don Wagner 10.Kevin Flockhart 11.John Bennett 12.Tom Flanagan 13.Paul Skodacek 14.Zane Zeiner 15.Jarred Nace 16.Pete Brittain 17.Andy Szapacs 18.Steven Reed 19.Mike Sweeney 20.Matt Wentz DNQ: Lou Strohl, Keith Mullineaux, Gordon Neal, Stacey Brown, Jason Bair

Late Models (25 Laps): 1.Travis Fisher 2.Geno Steigerwalt 3.Fankie Althouse 4.Paul Koehler, Jr. 5.Bandit Christman 6.Todd Stehle 7.Troy Bollinger 8.Mike VanFossen 9.Franics Gross III 10.Dean Ficarro 11.Austin Kochenash 12.Zane Zeiner 13.Todd Geist 14.Roger Heffelfinger, Jr. 15.Kristian Kalch 16.Doug Bell

Street Stocks (25 Laps): 1.Lonnie Behler 2.Kristy Morone 3.Mark Deysher 4.alan Schlenker 6.Jon Moser 7.Bill Hunara 8.Joe Mooney 9.shawn Sitarchyk 10.Jay Llewellyn 11.Todd Ahner 12.Justin Mooney 13.Jamie Smith 14.Chip Wanamaker 15.TJ Gursky 16.Paul Frantz 17.Chris Smith 18.Tony Zatsko19.Randy Ahner, Jr. 20.Mike Garris, Sr.

Pro4 Late Models (20 Laps): 1.Chris Kuronya 2.Jeremy Miller 3.Mike Stofflet 4. Randy Schlenker 5.Brian Ahner 6.Corey Hill 7.Barry Christman, Jr. 8.Dennis Silfies 9.Kevin Graver, Jr. 10.Dave Chapman 11.Kevin Rex, Jr. 12.Mike stringer 13.Dustin Bair 14.Matt Derkosh 15.Jason Bair 16.Robert Schafer 17.Justin Anderson 18.Kris Gruber 19.Jack Hill

Factory Stocks (20 Laps): 1.Jason Frey 2.Scooter Graver 3.Duane Eidem 4.Brian Hughes 5.Devin Gibson 6.Randy Ahner, Sr. 7.Justin Serfass 8.BJ Wambold 9.Jim Szoke 10.Chris Odenwelder 11.Chris May 12.Matt May 13.Kevin Behler DNS: Cody Geist

4-Cyl. Stocks (20 Laps): 1.Brian Kunkel 2.Gene Bowers 3.Dan Freundt 4.Jon Smith 5.Greg Steigerwalt 6.Ricky Kunkel 7.Peter Maier 8.Kendall Foulk DNS: Jake Kibler

4C Super Mods (15 Laps): 1.Wes Gilbert 2.Mike Renn 3.Mike Crispo 4.Steven Renn 5.Roland Morrison 6.Bob Renn




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