Daryn Pittman turned a final lap restart into his third straight victory in Keystone Cup 410 Sprint Series competition Sunday night at Selinsgrove Speedway.

 When it appeared Stevie Smith was headed to his first win of the series, a blown tire on the Steve Buckwalter sprinter set up a one lap shootout for the $5,000 prize.

 Pittman drove hard into turn one, slid up in front of Smith in turn two and outran Smith down the backstretch to score the victory by a car length over Smith.

 “Somebody’s gotta pinch me,” said a happy Pittman after his big win. “I don’t know what to say. We just weren’t good enough to win that race, but we hung with him. My hats off to this crew. I’m not doing anything different, they are just making me look a lot better than I am right now. Things are on our side. We keep getting good draws, yellows when we need them. Things are just rolling our way.”

 Pittman started on the pole but it was outside row one starter Fred Rahmer grabbing the early lead as Pittman and Smith battled for the runner-up spot.

 Rahmer pulled away from the field as Smith finally cleared Pittman on the seventh lap and set his sights on Rahmer.

 It took Smith only seven laps to reel in the Salfordville racer and blew by him with a pass in turn two on lap 14.

 Pittman followed Smith into the runner-up spot  a lap later as Rahmer was left to battle with Mark Smith, 358 sprint standout Pat Cannon and Lance Dewease.

 With lapped traffic coming into play, Pittman closed on Smith by lap 23 and then the first yellow of the race came out on lap 26 when Colby Womer slowed on the speedway.
 Smith kept Pittman at bay over the next few laps before the final lap yellow flag.

 Pittman, of Owasso, Oklahoma used the final lap restart to his advantage to score the win for car owner Mike Heffner.

 “I knew if he left the bottom open in one and two, I’d have a shot at it,” said Pittman, about Smith, who used the high line on the restart. “I had a great run on the restart off of four and I thought if I was within a car length of him at the cone, I was going to have a shot at it. When he went to the top, it just opened the door.”

 S. Smith, Dewease, Rahmer and Cannon completed the top five with M. Smith, Tyler Walker, 20th starting Aaron Ott, Mike Erdley and Adam Wilt completing the top 10 finishers.
 Mark Smith paced the 30-car field in time trials with a lap of 17.794 seconds while heats were won by Stevie Smith, Erdley and Rahmer with Justin Henderson winning the consolation.

 Dillsburg’s Rich Eichelberger came from his ninth starting spot to take the lead from Carmen Perigo on lap 12 and drove to his second straight Super Sportsman feature win.

 Eichelberger also won Saturday night at Williams Grove Speedway and became the first repeat winner on the series this season.

 Perigo, Frankie Herr, Jason Fry and Jay Fannasy were the top five finishers.


PIT STOPS….The crowd was one of the largest in recent years at the speedway…Heat races never started until 9pm due to track prep….Greg Hodnett had mechanical problems in time trials and was done for the night…The 410 Sprints return to the track on July 4th for the finale of the Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek series…