Walk-Off Winner: Lucas Wolfe Earns Fourth PA Speedweek Crown

By Kenny Varner Jr.
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Updated: July 13, 2019

By DREW PELLMAN

As Pennsylvania sprint car teams head back to the speedway this weekend, they’ll do it in a much less exhausting fashion. The 29th Annual Pennsylvania Sprint Car Speedweek — which featured nine races in as many nights from June 28th through July 6th is now in the rearview mirror, allowing everyone involved to get back to the “regular” weekend grind that is a sprint car racing season. Here’s a recap of how the 2019 version of Speedweek played out.

Friday, June 28th — Williams Grove Speedway — Car Count: 32
The marathon kicked off at Williams Grove, and it was veteran Lance Dewease that was essentially in his own time zone — winning the Speedweek opener by nearly eight seconds over Brian Montieth, Freddie Rahmer, Lucas Wolfe and T.J. Stutts.

Saturday, June 29th — Lincoln Speedway — Car Count: 34
It didn’t take long for the first controversial moment of Speedweek, as two of Lincoln’s best — Brian Montieth and Danny Dietrich got together while battling for the lead with just three laps to go. Both cars suffered major damage and were unable to continue, which handed the lead (and essentially the victory) back to Chad Trout — who earlier in the race was involved in a thrilling battle for the lead with Australian invader Darren Mollenoyux. After Trout and Mollenoyux came Ryan Smith, Freddie Rahmer and Cory Haas to complete the top five.

Sunday, June 30th — Selinsgrove Speedway — Car Count: 26
Hometown star Blane Heimbach started on the pole and seemed poised to take his first 410 victory of the season, but the Selinsgrove driver was dealt some bad luck in the back half of the feature event. It started as Ryan Smith took a violent flip into the first turn when he lost his top wing. Heimbach — who had a comfortable lead at the time — struck Smith’s wing on the way by, damaging his own top wing in the process. Under track rules, you must restart at the back of the field if you make a wing change, and that’s exactly what his team was forced to do under the red flag. That handed the lead to Port Royal’s Dylan Cisney, who held off former NASCAR star Tony Stewart in the final laps to grab his first Selinsgrove victory. Wolfe, Brock Zearfoss and Anthony Macri rounded out the top five.

*Fortunately, Ryan Smith was not seriously injured, but didn’t race the remainder of Speedweek as a precaution.

Monday, July 1st — Lincoln Speedway — Car Count: 37
After Saturday’s drama left Brian Montieth upside down, it’s safe to say he had a bit of extra motivation two nights later at the same track. One of Lincoln’s fan favorites used a second-row starting position to his advantage, waiting just 12 laps to make his move to the top of the scoreboard after passing Cory Eliason and Darren Mollenyoux. James McFadden and Christopher Bell — who both joined Speedweek on this night along with Eliason — might have been the fastest two cars on the track, but trouble struck each of them on the lap in separate incidents. Enter Kyle Larson — a past Speedweek winner at Lincoln — who then started his own rally only to fall one spot short at the checkered flag. After Montieth and Larson, Eliason settled for third, Chase Dietz was fourth and Aaron Reutzel crossed fifth.
Tuesday, July 2nd — Grandview Speedway — Car Count: 30
The fifth stop of Speedweek was the annual “Thunder on the Hill” event at Bechtelsville’s Grandview Speedway — a fast, high-banked 1/3-mile oval that produces sprint car action that is tough to duplicate. A first lap, first turn incident put an early end to the night for five drivers — including current Speedweek point leader Freddie Rahmer and current runner-up T.J. Stutts. After that though, the green-flag action was plentiful as Christopher Bell paced a field of top-notch challengers for his first-ever Pennsylvania Speedweek victory. James McFadden and Lance Dewease crossed second and third, but never had quite enough to overtake the top spot from Bell. Lucas Wolfe and Aaron Reutzel finished fourth and fifth, respectively.

Wednesday, July 3rd — Port Royal Speedway — Car Count: 37
The Juniata County half-mile — known affectionately as the Speed Palace — was the home to night number six of Speedweek, and Port Royal certainly didn’t disappoint. AJ Flick jumped out to the early lead after the re-draw gave him a second-place starting position, but Port Royal’s fastest car so far in 2019 — Logan Wagner — was lurking close behind. Wagner took the lead from Flick midway through the event before the first yellow flag of the night was unfurled on lap 19 for a flat tire on Aaron Reutzel’s car. Once the cars got to a reduced speed, Flick ended up with a tire issue of his own, ruining a solid night for his No. 2 machine. Lance Dewease, up to third at the time of the restart, passed Danny Dietrich for second, and then made the low line work to get past Wagner for the lead with just a few circuits remaining. After Dewease, Wagner and Dietrich came 14th-starting Freddie Rahmer and Kyle Reinhardt to complete the top five positions.

Thursday, July 4th — Hagerstown Speedway — Car Count: 22
A few years ago, driver Stevie Smith made an unlikely late-race rally piloting Fred Rahmer’s No. 51S to win the annual Speedweek stop at Hagerstown Speedway. Fast forward to the present day — Smith has since retired — and his seat has been filled by Rahmer’s son, Freddie. The driver may have changed, but the circumstances sure didn’t. In what looked like a carbon copy of the 2015 event, Freddie Rahmer found the bottom of the track to his liking in the final laps of the race to charge from fifth to secure his first career win at the Maryland track. Lucas Wolfe, Cory Eliason, Danny Dietrich and Anthony Macri completed the top five with just two events left to go on the schedule. Rahmer’s win also vaulted him back in front of Wolfe in the Speedweek standings by a very thin 10-point margin.

Friday, July 5th — Williams Grove Speedway — Car Count: 30
After threatening a few events earlier in the week, Mother Nature finally secured her first and only victory of Speedweek in 2019. Shortly after Lance Dewease set down the fastest lap in qualifying time trials, the skies opened up for the remainder of the evening and forced Williams Grove officials to postpone the annual Mitch Smith Memorial to July 19th. The race will not count toward PA Speedweek standings.

Saturday, July 6th — Port Royal Speedway — Car Count: 34
Due to a persistent evening rain, it took quite some time to get any race cars on the track for the inaugural running of the Greg Hodnett Classic. At nearly two o’clock in the morning, the final chapter of 2019 Pennsylvania Speedweek was written — and it will read similar to those of a few past years. If it’s Speedweek, Lucas Wolfe always seems to be there at the end thanks to his superb consistency. He was again at Port Royal, winning the race and securing the week-long championship in the process. On a super-fast track thanks to the rain, Wolfe took advantage of drawing the pole position, but not before he followed AJ Flick for the first 16 circuits. But like Wednesday night, Flick was hit with more bad luck in the form of another right-rear tire failure just as Wolfe had taken to the inside for an attempt at the lead. From there, Wolfe went unchallenged, securing the win in front of Robbie Kendall, Lance Dewease, Danny Dietrich and James McFadden.

RECAP
*Wolfe captured his fourth PA Speedweek championship (2007, 2014, 2017, 2019), moving him into third place all-time behind Fred Rahmer’s 13 Speedweek titles (1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2011, 2012) and Greg Hodnett’s five (2002, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2018).

**Wolfe won the title with 978 points, 69 ahead of runner-up Freddie Rahmer (909 points). Danny Dietrich (869), Lance Dewease (808), Anthony Macri (765), T.J. Stutts (702), Robbie Kendall (667), Dylan Cisney (591), Chase Dietz (511) and James McFadden (505) followed.

***72 different drivers took part in at least one Speedweek event. Eight of them — Wolfe, Rahmer, Dietrich, Macri, Stutts, Cisney, Dietz and Jared Esh — competed in every event. Of those eight, five of them (Wolfe, Rahmer, Dietrich, Macri and Stutts) successfully qualified for every feature.