Written by Bert Wojcik
Photo: Jesse Carberry
While usually midweek shows nowadays do not yield great car counts. The night before a holiday is an exception with 31 United Racing Club 360 Sprint Cars showing up to The Port Royal Speedway for race number 3 of the 2024 season. A mixture of young and old drivers made up the 24 car feature event and after the dust settled. Lincoln University ,PA Tyler Ross parked the Bob Lilick owned number 7 in Victory Lane on Wednesday night!
The main event started with Doug Hammaker and Cody Fletcher on the front row. Coming to green Ross tried to split it three wide for the lead. But behind them all hell broke loose. Jake Karklin got into Kyle Smith, sending him into a violent flip. While avoiding the wreck Derek Locke got into Seth Schnoke, sending him flipping into turn 1. Jacob Galloway made hard contact with Smith sending him over again. Kruz Kepner had nowhere to go and made contact with Schnoke and he laid the 19 over. Thankfully all drivers were uninjured.
On the restart. Ross tried to split Hammaker and Fletcher into one and two. Got a run down the back straight away to get around Hammaker and cleared Fletcher for the lead to lead the opening lap. Karklin would work his way through the field to get around Hammaker for the 3rd spot. He would get a run on Fletcher on lap 5 to take the second spot as the caution would wave for debris in turn 3 that came off the rear of the wing of the 22r of Ron Helmick.
Green would come back out with Ross and Karklin on the front row. Karklin would try to go low and force Ross high off of 2 momentarily going into turn 3. Ross would pull a slider to retake the lead and lead the lap. Karklin would nearly make contact with Ross going back to one. Ross would clear Karklin and start to run away.
“Jake runs up here weekly with a 410 so we knew he was fast.” Ross said in victory lane. “ I knew when he pulled up beside me it was going to be a battle. He raced me clean and I knew whoever came out in clean air was probably going to win the race.”
Behind them Preston Lattomus from Lewis,DE was the program as he was picking cars off left and right after breaking while leading heat race number 2. Coming from the B main Lattomus would end up in the 7th spot. Easily the hard charger coming from the 20th starting position.
But up front it was all Tyler Ross all the time as he would dominate the feature for his 3rd career URC Feature win and first of 2024 for the 3rd different driver to win in 2024.
“I didnt think Doug and Cody were going to keep the bottom open. I knew we would be good in clean air. Saw a little rubber on the bottom and just kept it down there. Bob Lilick and his guys work so hard to get us in this position I just show up and have some fun.. He asked me to drive last year and we kept getting rained out. We had a good run at Delaware and he asked me to stay on and its paying off now.
Karklin would finish second, Hammaker third, Fletcher fourth and Derek Locke would round out the top 5.
The United Racing Club is back in action Saturday July 27th for our first trip to the Kingdom of Speed The Bridgeport Motorsports Park since 2022.
Results for 7/3/2024 at Port Royal Speedway - Port Royal, PA
URC 360 Winged Sprint Cars 31 Entries
URC A Feature 25 Laps | 00:10:35.843
- 7-Tyler Ross[4]; 2. 35K-Jake Karklin[5]; 3. 66-Doug Hammaker[1]; 4. 66A-Cody Fletcher[2]; 5. 77-Derek Locke[8]; 6. 63-Josh Weller[11]; 7. 23B-Preston Lattomus[20]; 8. 10X-Reese Nowotarski[14]; 9. 18J-JT Ferry[10]; 10. 89-Robbie Stillwaggon[3]; 11. 47-Adam Carberry[9]; 12. 11H-Hayden Miller[15]; 13. 51-Jared Kreider[19]; 14. 17-Owen Dimm[17]; 15. 42U-Tyler Ulrich[16]; 16. 22R-Ron Helmick[13]; 17. 669-Brandon McGough[21]; 18. 54-Brett Wanner[23]; 19. 4-Ken Meisner[12]; 20. 32-Kyle Smith[6]; 21. 29R-Seth Schnoke[7]; 22. 19T-Jacob Galloway[18]; 23. 70D-Frankie Herr[22]; 24. 19-Kruz Kepner[24]; 25. (DNS) 22B-Jacob Balliet; 26. (DNS) 3-Will Brunson; 27. (DNS) 17G-Devin Gundrum; 28. (DNS) 99K-Mike Kiser; 29. (DNS) 11T-Mike Thompson; 30. (DNS) 45-Wyatt Walizer; 31. (DNS) 55W-Randy Wilbert
URC B Feature 10 Laps | 00:08:51.000
- 51-Jared Kreider[2]; 2. 23B-Preston Lattomus[11]; 3. 669-Brandon McGough[1]; 4. 70D-Frankie Herr[4]; 5. 17G-Devin Gundrum[3]; 6. 54-Brett Wanner[5]; 7. 19-Kruz Kepner[6]; 8. 22B-Jacob Balliet[8]; 9. 45-Wyatt Walizer[7]; 10. 99K-Mike Kiser[12]; 11. 55W-Randy Wilbert[10]; 12. 3-Will Brunson[9]; 13. 11T-Mike Thompson[13]
Specialty Rigging URC Heat 1 8 Laps | 00:01:51.000
- 77-Derek Locke[1]; 2. 47-Adam Carberry[2]; 3. 89-Robbie Stillwaggon[3]; 4. 18J-JT Ferry[6]; 5. 22R-Ron Helmick[9]; 6. 42U-Tyler Ulrich[10]; 7. 669-Brandon McGough[4]; 8. 70D-Frankie Herr[7]; 9. 45-Wyatt Walizer[5]; 10. 3-Will Brunson[11]; 11. (DNS) 55W-Randy Wilbert
Specialty Rigging URC Heat 2 8 Laps | 00:05:28.000
- 29R-Seth Schnoke[1]; 2. 35K-Jake Karklin[5]; 3. 66-Doug Hammaker[6]; 4. 63-Josh Weller[7]; 5. 10X-Reese Nowotarski[8]; 6. 17-Owen Dimm[10]; 7. 51-Jared Kreider[9]; 8. 54-Brett Wanner[3]; 9. 23B-Preston Lattomus[2]; 10. 11T-Mike Thompson[4]
Specialty Rigging URC Heat 3 8 Laps | 00:06:46.000
- 7-Tyler Ross[7]; 2. 32-Kyle Smith[8]; 3. 66A-Cody Fletcher[2]; 4. 4-Ken Meisner[5]; 5. 11H-Hayden Miller[4]; 6. 19T-Jacob Galloway[3]; 7. 17G-Devin Gundrum[6]; 8. 22B-Jacob Balliet[1]; 9. 19-Kruz Kepner[10]; 10. 99K-Mike Kiser[9]
- Robert Wojcik on Jul 04, 2024
- Article Date: 7/4/2024 by Bert Wojcik