Late Night Turns Out Great For Cris Eash

ABBOTTSTOWN, PA
Last week, Cris Eash said he was having one of the best nights of his life after winning two 410 Sprint car features on the same night at Lincoln Speedway.

Saturday night, with the O’Reilly All Star Circuit of Champions in town to battle the Pennsylvania Posse, Eash waited out a three hour rain delay and then came out on top of a thriller to win the 30-lap feature event. The event finished just after 1AM Sunday morning.

Eash took the lead from All Star regular Greg Wilson on lap 19 and then held on during the final 11 laps for his 41st career Lincoln victory and sixth career All Star win.

“Man that was awesome,” said the Hanover, PA driver following his $5,000 victory. “There towards the end of the race I lost my brakes. But luckily I was running the top and I didn’t need a lot of brakes up there.”

Eash started third but jumped into the second spot behind Wilson, who beat fellow front row starter Fred Rahmer into turn one.

Brian Montieth moved Rahmer back to fourth on lap three as Cody Darrah moved into to challenge Rahmer for the fourth spot.

Just as Montieth got under Eash for the runner-up spot, Darrah slowed on the track with a flat tire. Eash held the spot, which would be one of the big breaks of the race.

Wilson maintained the top spot as Eash, Montieth Rahmer and Doug Esh put on a fantastic battle for top five positions.

Esh blasted from fifth to third on lap 18 just as Eash was racing his way around Wilson for the top spot entering the third turn.

Esh drove by Wilson on lap 20 as Rahmer moved Wilson back another spot a lap later. Wilson faded to fifth on lap 22 when Montieth went into fourth place.
Scott Geesey brought out the final caution of the event on lap 26 when he spun in turn four as Eash had opened up some distance out front.

Rahmer disposed of the lapped car of Alan Krimes on the restart but Eash was up to the challenge and easily picked up the win, his third straight in the Pigeon Hills.

“Darren had this car really good tonight,” Eash said of car owner/brother who owns the E & G Classics, Macri Concrete No. 17E. “We’re really on to something. Anytime you beat Fred Rahmer, you feel like you’ve done something.”

Rahmer held off a last lap challenge from Montieth for the runner-up spot with Esh fourth and Chad Layton fifth.

Completing the top 10 were 12th starting Brian Leppo, 22nd starting Stevie Smith, Wilson, Greg Hodnett and Jim Siegel.

Rahmer set fast time over the 35-car field during time trials with a one lap time of 13.252 seconds with sprint car heats were won by Aaron Ott, Shawn “Big Block” Weaver, Jim Siegel and Alan Krimes.

Leppo set a brand new 12 lap track record after his B-Main win. Leppo’s new record is 2:51.70 erasing the old mark of 2:52.12 set by Sean Michael on 5/2/1998.

Danny Beard led all 20 laps to capture his first career thundercar feature.

While Beard had a lot of action behind him, he was able to stay out front for that elusive first win.

Doug Bennett finished second over Kyle Martin, Justin Mong and Sam Gallagher.