PORT ROYAL
 Rick Lafferty had a rocket ship under him Saturday night at Port Royal Speedway.

 The Pennington, NJ made the three hour one-way tow to the track pay off by winning the opening night 25-lap 410 Sprint car feature at the track.

 Lafferty’s win was his fourth career at the Juniata County oval and came in front of a nice-size opening night crowd despite cold temperatures.

 “Last year we struggled all year here and we got a new car over the winter and so far I’m real happy with it,” Lafferty said of his new JEI chassis. “My arms got a little tired out there but I could hold my breath for about eight laps but the cautions definitely helped.”

 Lafferty was the class of the field but several competitors were eliminated from competition due to crashes, engine woes or flat tires.

 Six-time URC champion Curt Michael set the pace during the first five laps before Greg Hodnett brought out a yellow when the J & S Fabrication sprinter came up lame on the backstretch.

 On the restart, Lafferty blasted around Michael for the top spot as defending track champion Todd Shaffer got around Michael on the ninth lap after starting fourth on the grid.

 Lafferty maintained his lead over Shaffer as he dodged slower traffic and nearly was taken out by the slower car of Brian Ehrenzeller at the midway point of the race.

 Lafferty was in heavy traffic on lap 16 as Shaffer raced about six-car lengths off the pace until Shaffer ran into the back of Craig Robinson while trying to lap him in turn four. The crash brought out a red flag and neither driver was injured.

 Lafferty led two more laps before Joey Hershey brought out a caution and while pacing under the yellow flag, Mike Wagner, who was running in the second spot, stopped on the track with engine woes.

 Daryn Pittman was the next driver to take over the runner-up spot as Lafferty easily pulled away on the restart only to have another yellow with three laps to go for a flat tire on Lance Dewease’s car. Dewease was running fifth. Dave Ely also suffered a flat tire on lap 22 while running top ten.

 Over the final three laps, Lafferty drove off from Pittman and scored the $3,000 win.

 “I couldn’t do any of this without my sponsors and especially Hank’s Performance Products and Denise Gentzler,” Lafferty stated. “Last year we had her other business Ryan Industries on the car but we thought maybe this year, we could bring her more business if we could get to the winners circle more often. I’m glad to have her on board. Without her, I wouldn’t be doing this every week.”

 Lafferty also thanked Clugston Lumber, Glenn Harry Auctioneer and PMJ Electric as other team sponsors.

 Pittman, in the Keen Motorsports machine finished second with Harrisburg’s Chad Layton third, Ephrata’s Cliff Brian fourth and Michael, of Ocean View, Delaware fifth.

 Rounding out the top 10 finishers were Justin Henderson, Mark Coldren, Dave Hahn, Derek Sell and Ehrenzeller. Only 10 cars finished the distance.

 Heats for the 22 cars were won by Brian and Shaffer.