Rick’s Racing Roundup: Franklin’s Exley Picks Up First Career Victory

Rick Rarer

Rick Rarer

Published July 16, 2019 4:40 am
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Hunter Exley of Franklin in victory lane after his first career win with the Penn-Ohio Pro Stock Series (Jimmy Porter Photo)A break in the rain meant lots of racing action in Western Pennsylvania over the weekend, and one Franklin driver scored a big win during the Penn-Ohio Pro Stock Series visit to Stateline Speedway just across the border in Busti, N. Y.

(Hunter Exley of Franklin in victory lane after his first career win with the Penn-Ohio Pro Stock Series. Photo by Jimmy Porter)

Hunter Exley picked a good time to score his first career win taking home the $1,000 winner’s check. He did it by holding off local stock car ace Bobby Whitling of Seneca. Both drivers utilize Slider race cars built by Whitling making it a one-two sweep of the top spots.

Fab 4 racing returned to Lernerville Speedway on Friday and Jack Sodeman Jr. took advantage of early leader AJ Flick’s misfortune to score his second sprint car win of the season. Jeremiah Shingledecker of Polk also scored his second victory of the year winning the big block modified feature. Alex Ferree won a wild late model main while Corey McPherson returned to victory lane in the stock car nightcap.

This Friday, Lernerville will serve up another helping of Fab 4 racing and then on Tuesday, July 23 the biggest sprint car race of the year in Western Pennsylvania will take center stage.

The World of Outlaws invade for the 28th annual Silver Cup/Don Martin Memorial paying $25,000 to the winner.

Current point leader and nine-time winner Brad Sweet will lead the Outlaws to town driving for Kasey Kahne Racing. Sweet also won the last World of Outlaws race at Lernerville so he will definitely be the odds on favorite.

Current World of Outlaws point leader Brad Sweet will lead the invasion to Lernerville Speedway for the Silver Cup. Photo by Rick Rarer

Current World of Outlaws point leader Brad Sweet will lead the invasion to Lernerville Speedway for the Silver Cup. Photo by Rick Rarer

You can’t count out defending champion Donny Schatz who currently sits second in points and is known to get hot this time of year. Logan Schuchart, Kraig Kinser, David Gravel, and Shane Stewart are just a few of the Outlaws that will be on hand to take on the Lernerville regulars like track champion AJ Flick, Sye Lynch, Carl Bowser and others. Grandstand gates open at 5:00 p.m, hot laps at 6:30 p.m. and opening ceremonies are slated for 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday.

The 410 sprint cars made their only appearance of the season at Michaels’ Mercer Raceway this past Saturday and it was Brandon Spithaler scoring his first win of the season. The Evans City driver took home $4,000 for winning night two of the two-day Buddy Barris Memorial race.

On Friday the 305 sprints were on hand where Greg Dobrosky won his fourth feature in six starts, this one worth $1,500.

This Saturday the track will present the first-ever Michaels Memorial Show featuring the BRP Modified Tour as they battle it out for a top prize of $3,000. The 305 RaceSaver sprints, mod lites, mini stocks, and vintage cars will round out the card. It will also be an autograph night for fans.

After several rainouts, Hummingbird Speedway took advantage of the sunny skies to complete their mid-season championships on Saturday. The late model feature found Paul Kot making it three wins in a row.

This Saturday Hummingbird will honor local racing icon Tommy Scott with the Tommy Scott Memorial for the street stocks. The winner of the 30-lap feature will take home $1,500 plus lap money.

Thunder Mountain Speedway also returned to action this past Friday where Zach Myers was the big winner. Myers took home over $2,000 for winning the semi late special.

This Friday it will be mid-season championship night at Thunder Mountain with the regular five divisions in action.

After taking a week off for the Trumball County Fair, Sharon Speedway will return to action this Saturday evening. The Super Series presented by Menards will feature Outlaw E mods in the Third Bickerstaff Cup race and find the winner taking home $1,200. Also on the card will be the RUSH wingless sprint cars, stock cars, RUSH modifieds, and Jr. sprints. There will also be bike races for the kids this Saturday.

The month of money kicks off this week at Attica Raceway Park in Ohio with the Brad Doty Classic featuring the World of Outlaws. From there, one of the biggest sprint car races in the world kicks off Wednesday at Eldora Speedway. Four nights of racing will take place and find the winner taking home an unprecedented $175,000 dollars the win in Saturday’s final! Everybody who is anybody in sprint car racing will be at Eldora this weekend.

Rick’s Racing Roundup is brought to you by:

Red Bandana Winery
Zacherl Motors
Allegheny Grille
Kerle Tire Company
Redbank Chevrolet
Bauer Truck Repair

About Rick

Rick Rarer, a Franklin resident, is the owner of Racestud.com and SprintCarNews.com. He has been covering racing for 19 years, taking racing photos for 14 years, and has covered races at over 100 tracks in 15 states. Most recently, Rick won the Bill Steinbach Media Award at the Lernerville Speedway Annual Awards Banquet.

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