Intense is the best way to describe the 17th annual running of Cindy Rowe Auto Glass Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek.

 And it came down to the final lap in Sunday night’s finale at Selinsgrove Speedway before Lucas Wolfe emerged as a first time series champion.

 With four laps to go in the finale, it appeared Greg Hodnett might take his second career Speedweek title. But Wolfe’s on track presence was amazing as he worked his way into third place at the finish, good enough to give him the title by a mere eight points.

 It put an exclamation point on a great week by Wolfe, his dad and crew chief Randy Wolfe and the entire Jim and Laura Allebach owned team.

 “It feels good to put my name with the list of drivers that have won the series because it’s a prestigious week and we can always look back on it as one of our top career accomplishments,” said the 20-year old Mechanicsburg driver. “I am happy for Jim and Laura to be able to do it because that’s a real testament to a team to be able to be successful for all of Speedweek. It’s a positive reflection on them and the team that they’ve put together.”

 Wolfe’s championship run came on the heels of six top five finishes in seven starts. His only finish outside the top five was a 12th at Port Royal Speedway, where he raced as hard for that spot as he did all week long for the top five finishes. Wolfe had three runner-up finishes during the week and ended the week with 968 total points.

 Wolfe earned $16,550 which includes the $2,000 for the series championship.

 Was there any pressure on the young driver entering the feature on Sunday night knowing what the outcome could be?

 “There are too many variables to really have any kind of a game plan going into the final night,” he stated. “We were fortunate to have a better qualifying time and then we both won our heat race so I knew it was going to be tough to beat him. I didn’t know exactly what the feature had to finish like but I figured I was starting in front of him and was behind in points, I just had to do as good as I could on the track and try to win and everything would solve itself.”

 Wolfe admitted he glanced at the big infield scoreboard a few times at Selinsgrove over the final laps despite being involved in heated battles on the race track.

 “Yeah I looked at the board a couple of times and you just kinda always look,” he added. “It’s kinda one of those things you just look to see where Greg was at but there was really nothing I could do about it. You can only control what you do on your own and as long as you stay looking forward and try to win the race, that’s really all I could do. Fortunately for us, it worked out that we finished far enough ahead to win the points. That team also had a great week and that says a lot of about the caliber of team they have as well. It was just a good week and it came right down to the end.”

 It was business as usual for Wolfe on Monday as he was helping his dad ready the No. 5W sprinter for a trip to the Kings Royal this weekend at Eldora Speedway. Wolfe was leaving for Ohio Monday night around midnight to race the Rick Kaylor-owned 360 sprint Tuesday at Eldora and then Kaylor’s 410 Sprint last night in the Brad Doty Classic at Limaland Motorsports Park. He will also drive the Kaylor car in Eldora NRA Sprint Invader 360 competition this weekend as well as the Allebach 410 sprint.

 Hodnett finished second in points with 960 in the Jim and Sandy Kline-owned No. 22 sprinter. Hodnett won the two big $10,000 to win races at Lincoln and Williams Grove giving the team the highest money earned for the week at $28,200 which includes the $1,500 Speedweek runner-up payoff.

 Stevie Smith was the only driver to finish in the top 10 in all seven races and finished third in points with 916. Smith didn’t win a feature but did have two runner-up finishes and took home $12,600 in prize money.

 Lance Dewease won one event at Hagerstown Speedway and ended up fourth in points with 795 points. He had six top 10 finishes and ended the week with $12,275 in earnings.

 Keith Kauffman finished fifth in Speedweek points with 704 points after two wins at Bedford and Port Royal. His wins were the top time he finished in the top 10 all week and took home $15,560 in money earnings.

 Fred Rahmer was sixth in points with 693 points and $9,200 in earnings, which included $1,200 from the Rae Peters Family for the most heat race wins. Rahmer won the tie-breaker over Hodnett for being the lowest in final Speedweek points. Both drivers had four heat race wins. Rahmer had four top 10 finishes in the final four races of the week.

 Todd Shaffer was the Grandview Speedway winner which helped him to finish seventh in points for the week with 668. Shaffer had three top 10 finishes and $10,250 in earnings.

 Chad Layton ended up finishing eighth in Speedweek points with 605 points after three top 10 finishes and $6,325 in money won.

 TJ Stutts was the ninth place Speedweek point finisher with 594 points, $7,075 in money earned and three top 10 finishes.

 Brian Leppo completed the top 10 in Speedweek points with 577 and $8,775 in money. Leppo also had three top 10 finishes including a runner-up at Lincoln in the opener.

 Sean Michael was the week’s other winner in the finale Sunday night at Selinsgrove driving for Jim Nace. Michael finished 14th in points and was fourth at the Grove and runner-up at Port in just three races entered.

 Thirteen different drivers at least one top five finish during the week with 21drivers finishing in the top 10 at least one time in the seven race series.

 Seventy-eight different drivers participated during the week with 16 teams racing all seven races. Two drivers missed just one event while four drivers raced in five of the shows. Four more drivers competed in four events while seven teams made three stops on the tour. Sixteen drivers attended just two shows and 29 drivers were on hand for just one event during the week.

 Port Royal’s Thursday night show was the only program lost to the weather and crowds were great at most events with the exception of Hagerstown, which was also affected by weather. Williams Grove enjoyed its largest crowd of the year as did Grandview.

 The average car count was 34 per match, with Williams Grove topping the week with 45 entries and Bedford’s 24 coming in at the low end. 
 Both of Kauffman’s wins as well as Dewease’s came from the pole while Hodnett started sixth in his Lincoln win and fourth in his Grove win. Shaffer started fourth at Grandview as did Michael at Selinsgrove. The zero feature inversion was drawn four times with the six invert going off two times and an eight once during the week.

 Kauffman led the most feature laps with 60 followed by Michael’s 31 laps led. Dewease led 30, Shaffer 25, Stevie Smith 22, Wolfe 17, Hodnett 16, Layton 9, Niki Young four laps and Doug Esh led one feature lap.

 Wolfe and Leppo both set fast time twice during the series with Leppo’s quick time at Bedford being a new track record. Other quick times for the week included Kauffman, Dewease and Shepard.

 A lot of excitement took place during the 17th running of Speedweek. Several great races including Grandview, Lincoln and Selinsgrove highlighted the week of action.  

 And to think it literally came down to the final lap in the final race of the series. Folks, it doesn’t get any better than that!


KNOXVILLE JUST AROUND THE CORNER
 It’s not too long until another big week of racing takes place but this time it will be about 17 hours west of Pennsylvania in the state of Iowa.

 The sixth annual Southern Iowa SprintWeek is set to begin on August 2-3-4 with the ASCS Knoxville 360 Nationals at Knoxville Raceway. The Knoxville 410 Sprints as well as the Brodix Tournament of Champions on August 5 are also a part of the SprintWeek series.

 It then moves to Southern Iowa Speedweek for the Front Row Challenge on Monday, August 6 and the Ultimate Challenge on Tuesday August 7.

 Then the granddaddy of all races-the 47th annual SuperClean Knoxville Nationals will take center stage August 8-11 at the Marion County Fairgrounds.

 Highlighting Nationals week is the $10,000 Factory Value Parts World Challenge on August 10 and of course the $150,000 to win Knoxville 410 Sprint Nationals on August 11.

 Early entries for the Nationals from Pennsylvania include Greg Hodnett, Fred Rahmer, Lucas Wolfe and Bob Bennett with more expected to be filed within the next few weeks.

 For more information on all of the happenings for Southern Iowa SprintWeek, visit www.knoxvilleraceway.com.


PIT STOPS
 Lucas Wolfe captured a big win in 360 Sprint car action Tuesday night in the NRA Sprint Invaders Super Summer Sizzler Series at Eldora Speedway. Wolfe piloted the Rick Kaylor-owned No. 13K JEI to the victory in the event after starting eighth. Wolfe won a thrilling late race battle with Dale Blaney before scoring the win, his fourth in seven starts in the Kaylor owned sprinter….

 Joey Saldana captured another win on the World of Outlaws tour last weekend with a win at I-55 Raceway in the Kasey Kahne Racing JEI Chassis.  He won over Donny Schata, Steve Kinser, Tony Bruce, Jr. and Danny Lasoski…

 Congratulations to Jason Covert on his big $5,000 late model win last week at Eriez Speedway. Covert is the defending MACS Series champion…

 URC Sprint driver Justin Collett will be on the sidelines for a few weeks after suffering a broken ankle in URC action last weekend at Bridgeport. Collett also sprained his other ankle in a hard crash into the wall…

 Some of the big events this weekend include the Daryl Gohn/Glenn Gohn Sr. Memorial for 410 Sprints Saturday at Lincoln, the MACS late models at Bedford on Friday,  Kids Night at Port Royal on Saturday and the big $2,000 to win Super Late Model race at Susquehanna Speedway Park on Saturday night. For those Monster Truck fans, Hagerstown has them Friday through Sunday this weekend…