PORT ROYAL, PA – Brock Zearfoss was the class of the field from the drop of the green flag during hot laps on Saturday, October 19 at Port Royal Speedway. His fast times, and consistent laps running around the fence of the speedway landed the Jonestown, Pennsylvania native in victory lane at the end of the 25-lap feature scoring the first URC victory of his career.
Thirty-three cars made the trip to Port Royal Speedway on a beautiful fall Saturday night for the third Open Wheel Madness and one of the final races of the 2019 Capitol Renegade United Racing Club season. Once again, many drivers such as Zearfoss, Ryan Smith, Steve Buckwalter, and Lucas Wolfe, competed in “double duty” for the weekend racing in both the 410 division and in URC competition. The track seemed to be in perfect condition, and Zearfoss made it known early that he was going to be a tough car to beat when he was the only car to dip into the 16 second bracket during hot laps.
Brian Carber and Mike Kiser led the field to the green flag for the 25-lap URC feature event. Carber pulled out to an early lead with Kiser, and Josh Weller behind him. The caution would fly for Tyler Ross who got together with another car and went into the wall coming to a stop in turn 1. This restart would then cause havoc on the entire back half of the field bringing out a lengthy red flag. Doug Hammaker and Steve Buckwalter were running inside the top 10 and got together on the front stretch sending Buckwalter violently flipping and a pile up being formed behind him sending more cars on their roof. Involved in the accident were Buckwalter, Hammaker, Curt Michael, Danny Varin, Jake Eldreth, Ryan Stillwaggon, Troy Wagaman Jr., and Joe Trenca. Fortunately all drivers would get out of their cars under their own power and walk away from the accident.
Carber led Kiser to the restart with point leader Chad Layton, and Weller close behind. Ryan Smith, who got a win early in the season at Port Royal with URC, had been making his way up from the eighth starting spot and was soon in the top five. On lap 8, Smith made the move on Carber and took over the lead. It seemed as though Smith might have the race wrapped up but lurking in the background was Zearfoss who redrew the 12th position in the redraw and was now up to second. Smith and Zearfoss both ran the top of the racetrack, inches from the fence weaving in and out of lapped traffic. “It was hard to pick and choose your lines” said Zearfoss after his win, “I was pretty confident in what we had, I knew running Ryan down our car was really good”. It was in lapped traffic that Zearfoss was finally able to sneak past Smith with 3 laps to go. Zearfoss would go on to win his first URC feature event of the season while chaos ensued on the final lap when Layton and Weller, both fighting hard for the fourth place finish, got together sending the man second in points into the turn 4 wall and onto his roof. Josh got out of his car and was ok after the incident.
“Anytime you can get laps on the racetrack before you race another division is always better”, Zearfoss said about running the 410 feature earlier in the night, “we had a really good race going – really exciting in traffic”. Zearfoss also said that getting his first ever URC win was a “nice thing to check off on the list – it’s exciting”. Brock would like to thank his family, friends, and crew for helping propel him to victory lane. He would also like to thank his sponsors: Mooses LZ, Heavy Equipment Loaders and Parts, BAPS Auto Paint & Supply, Berkebile Oil Company, Meckleys Limestone, and Metz-Wolfgang Autosport.
The KSE Hard Charger for the night went to Adam Carberry who improved twelve positions after starting 17th and making his way up to a 5th place finish. Heat race wins went to Zearfoss, Weller, Buckwalter, and Michael respectively. Troy Wagaman Jr. was the winner of the B-main.
The Capitol Renegade United Racing Club is back in for the final time in 2019 at Bridgeport Speedway for the Big Track Classic – Midge Miller Memorial on November 8 and 9. It all comes down to this as Chad Layton has extended his lead to 92 points over last year’s champion Josh Weller. This is a race you do not want to miss as we will be crowning our 2019 champion.
Photo credit: Chad Warner
RESULTS – OCTOBER 19, 2019
HEAT 1 (8 LAPS) - 1. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss, [2]; 2. 8C-Brian Carber, [1]; 3. 72-Ryan Smith, [6]; 4. 66-Doug Hammaker, [4]; 5. 47-Adam Carberry, [3]; 6. 19-Troy Wagaman Jr., [7]; 7. 3-Todd Gracey, [5]; 8. 98-Joe Trenca, [8]; 9. 10-Joe Kata, [9]
HEAT 2 (8 LAPS) - 1. 63-Josh Weller, [5]; 2. 5-Tyler Ross, [3]; 3. 99-Mike Kiser, [8]; 4. 34-Mark Van Vorst, [1]; 5. 19S-Steven Drevicki, [4]; 6. 5Q-Ryan Quackenbush, [2]; 7. 15-Tyler Templin, [7]; 8. (DNF) 1W-Matt Campbell, [6]
HEAT 3 (8 LAPS) - 1. 7X-Steve Buckwalter, [6]; 2. 35-Chad Layton, [7]; 3. 54-Brett Wanner, [5]; 4. 23J-Jake Eldreth, [1]; 5. 11-Ryan Stillwaggon, [3]; 6. 19L-Ryan Linder, [8]; 7. 67C-Jason Cherry, [2]; 8. (DNF) 80M-Ashley Cappetta, [4]
HEAT 4 (8 LAPS) - 1. 5G-Curt Michael, [4]; 2. 00-Danny Varin, [6]; 3. 5W-Lucas Wolfe, [8]; 4. 11A-Austin Bishop, [3]; 5. 6M-Chad Criswell, [1]; 6. 7-Ed Aikin, [5]; 7. 32-Justin Foster, [2]; 8. (DNF) 4-Jimmy Stitzel, [7]
B-MAIN (10 LAPS) - 1. 19-Troy Wagaman Jr., [1]; 2. 98-Joe Trenca, [9]; 3. 7-Ed Aikin, [4]; 4. 1W-Matt Campbell, [10]; 5. 32-Justin Foster, [8]; 6. 80M-Ashley Cappetta, [11]; 7. 67C-Jason Cherry, [7]; 8. (DNF) 19L-Ryan Linder, [3]; 9. (DNF) 5Q-Ryan Quackenbush, [2]; 10. (DNF) 3-Todd Gracey, [5]; 11. (DNF) 15-Tyler Templin, [6]; 12. (DNF) 10-Joe Kata, [13]; (DNS) 4-Jimmy Stitzel,
FEATURE (25 LAPS) - 1. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss, [12]; 2. 72-Ryan Smith, [8]; 3. 8C-Brian Carber, [1]; 4. 35-Chad Layton, [6]; 5. 47-Adam Carberry, [17]; 6. 54-Brett Wanner, [11]; 7. 11A-Austin Bishop, [16]; 8. 99-Mike Kiser, [2]; 9. 63-Josh Weller, [4]; 10. 19S-Steven Drevicki, [18]; 11. 7-Ed Aikin, [23]; 12. 5W-Lucas Wolfe, [10]; 13. 5G-Curt Michael, [9]; 14. 1W-Matt Campbell, [24]; 15. 5Q-Ryan Quackenbush, [25]; 16. 34-Mark Van Vorst, [14]; 17. (DNF) 6M-Chad Criswell, [20]; 18. (DNF) 00-Danny Varin, [3]; 19. (DNF) 7X-Steve Buckwalter, [7]; 20. (DNF) 5-Tyler Ross, [5]; 21. (DNF) 66-Doug Hammaker, [13]; 22. (DNF) 23J-Jake Eldreth, [15]; 23. (DNF) 11-Ryan Stillwaggon, [19]; 24. (DNF) 19-Troy Wagaman Jr., [21]; 25. (DNF) 98-Joe Trenca, [22]
- Casey Robicheau on Oct 20, 2019
- Article Date: 10/19/2019 by Casey Robicheau