Storybook Night for Montieth in Speedweek Opener

“I guess Kevin was sitting in this thing tonight,” were the words from an emotional Brian Montieth after dominating opening night of the 19th annual Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek Saturday night at Lincoln Speedway.

Montieth was referring to the late Kevin Gobrecht, who the race was run in memory as his Jerry Parrish owned team raced a car that was painted identical to the Amoco No. 93 sprint car that Gobrecht last drove before his untimely death ten years ago while racing with the World of Outlaws.

Montieth’s win was the fifth of the season at Lincoln and his 14th career win for the defending track champion. It was also Montieth’s first career Pennsylvania Speedweek feature win and puts him on top of the early Speedweek point chase.

“It was an honor to drive this car tonight,” stated the Phoenixville driver following his $7,000 payday. “The Gobrecht family means a whole lot to this entire team.”

Montieth made it known early that he was the car to beat.

Lining up on the pole for the 30-lap feature, he quickly jumped out front before Mike Erdley brought out a yellow with one lap complete with a spin in turn two.

Two laps later, Erdley stopped again in turn three with mechanical problems while Cory Haas also stopped on the track with driveline issues.

Montieth set the pace on the restart over Brian Leppo and Greg Hodnett as 10th starting Cody Darrah began to show strength, moving into the top five by lap nine.

Darrah passed Hodnett for third place on lap 17 and drove under Leppo a lap later to move into the runner-up spot.

And like so many times this season, the Montieth-Darrah Shootout was about to begin!

With lapped traffic playing into the equation, Darrah closed on the leader with seven laps to go.

Montieth got the break he needed on lap 24 when the rear end locked up in Leppo’s car sending him for a hard flip in turn three to end his great run.

It was just what Montieth needed as he drove away from Darrah over the final laps to capture the popular win in front of a packed house.

“It was mine to lose,” Montieth stated. “It’s always better to run second in traffic. I thought I was gonna be going backwards. I’m sorry for Brian to bring out the red but I really needed a yellow and that’s what I got. This is all sort of a haze right now and we’ll see how long it keeps going.”

Montieth’s win came in a Maxim chassis that has over 200 races on it.

Parrish summed it up best in victory lane.

“I think we have the driver that best represents Kevin Gobrecht sitting in this car,” Parrish said. “I told the guys today, if we can park this car in victory lane, they might tear the fence down.”

It certainly was a storybook night for the Premier Motorsports team and the family of Kevin Gobrecht.

Darrah of Red Lion finished second with Thomasville’s Hodnett third.

Lancaster’s Doug Esh drove around Rahmer for the fourth spot coming off the fourth turn for the checkered flag.

Completing the top 10 were Chad Layton, Jim Siegel, Mark Smith, Johnny Mackison, Jr. and Justin Henderson.