Photo by Ed "Lugnut" Funk

PORT ROYAL
 It was “Lucky Seven” Night Saturday at Port Royal Speedway.

 Keith Kauffman piloted the Dave Middleswarth owned No. 7 sprint car to the popular victory in the seventh night of the 17th annual Cindy Rowe Auto Glass Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek. The win came on 7-7-07 and was worth $7,000 to the 57-year-old veteran driver from Mifflintown.

 While Kauffman was winning for the second time during the Speedweek series, the heated battle on the track involved Greg Hodnett and Lucas Wolfe, racing at the back of the top 10 during most of the event. The two went into the night tied for the Speedweek points lead. Hodnett ended up finishing 11th and Wolfe 12th, giving Hodnett a 17-point advantage heading into Sunday night’s finale at Selinsgrove Speedway.

 But the night belonged to the all-time winningest driver at the Port.

 Kauffman went out first in time trials and set the night’s quickest time with a lap of 16.235 seconds. He then drew the zero feature starting inversion and wired the 30-lap event for his fourth overall win this season. He ranks second behind Hodnett with total wins in 2007 in the Central Pennsylvania area.

 “This must be our lucky night,” Kauffman said to the capacity crowd at the Port. “I have to thank Dave Middleswarth and his boys Brett and Rob. They put up all the money and pay the bills on this thing and it costs a lot of money to run one of these.”

 Kauffman got the jump on Sean Michael on the start but his pace was slowed on lap three when Todd Shaffer’s sprinter suffered problems and brought out a yellow flag. That was the lone caution of the event.

 Kauffman opened up a healthy lead over Michael on the restart but Michael was able to close back in in lapped traffic just past the halfway point of the event.

 Fred Rahmer, who started fifth got around Stevie Smith for third spot on lap 23 and ran third through the checkered flag for his best Speedweek finish so far.

 Kauffman took the win by 10 car lengths over Michael, who is driving a Jim Nace-owned sprinter.

 “It was a tough race track tonight and we had a front row starting spot,” Kauffman added. “It’s hard to get them and you have to capitalize on them and take advantage because you don’t get that many. We drew a good pill for time trials and everything just went out way tonight.”

 Kauffman’s win at Bedford Speedway last Sunday also came from the pole starting spot.

 Jeff Shepard finished fourth with Smith fading to fifth at the checkered.

 Kevin Nouse came on strong late for a sixth place finish ahead of Mike Erdley, Lance Dewease, Mark Smith and Doug Esh.

 Heat races for the 38-car field were won by Bob Bennett, Chad Layton, Hodnett and Shaffer. The B-Main was won by Alan Cole.
 Hodnett has 843 points heading into Selinsgrove followed by Wolfe (826), Stevie Smith (774), Dewease (686), Kauffman (625), Rahmer (570), Shaffer (559), Layton (555), Leppo (527) and Stutts (509).