YORK HAVEN, Pa. – After a jam-packed 40 days of racing, Danny Dietrich was exhausted and in need of a vacation to recharge his battery.
First, Dietrich had some unfinished business. The Gettysburg, Pa., driver wanted to add another BAPS Motor Speedway victory to his resumé.
It didn’t look very difficult for Dietrich Sunday. He decimated the field, starting on the pole and driving away to an eight-second victory in the prestigious Kevin Gobrecht Classic presented by Chad Baker Drain Cleaning, Plumbing, & HVAC. The win netted the Gary Kauffman-owned No. 48 a nice $5,300 payday.
“Really, the only time we’ve been slow is Speedweek,” Dietrich said. “We just weren’t good enough, but it’s hard to believe it only ended 20 days ago. It feels like it was two months.
“Eldora didn’t go our way. We wrote that week off, and it’s behind us. We are going to go into the Month of Money in September with a little bit of a different attitude. We are going to take two short getaways to recoup and take Knoxville off. It’s always a beater and seems to beat everybody up.”
Continued Dietrich, “We are going to try and get fresh, get our body fresh, get our motors fresh, get our cars built, and try and get after it. We hit double-digit wins, and 10 wins is a good season no matter how you look at it.”
Dietrich put this one away early, when he took off from his pole starting spot. Freddie Rahmer also made a quick move to the front, blasting by Chase Dietz to take the runner-up spot by the completion of lap 1.
Catching Dietrich was going to be a tall order. He pulled out to a 1.656-second lead by the fifth circuit, entered lapped traffic one lap later, and stretched his lead to a gaudy 4.022 seconds by lap 10.
“We were really good,” Dietrich said. “I was able to just roll around the second half of the races. The car was really good, and I got out there and didn’t have to really race anybody other than lapped cars.
“Once and a while, you think you hear somebody and get to that point where you are racing a lapped car for five or six laps, and you feel like you aren’t making time. You have to tell yourself to get going so somebody doesn’t catch you.”
By the halfway point, Dietrich was mowing down the competition. He lapped into the top 10 and held a 5.016-second lead. Five laps later, the advantage grew to 6.381 seconds over the 15-car field.
Dietz, who slipped back to fourth at one point before slipping past Kyle Moody for third, started to close a bit on Rahmer, but neither driver had anything for the leader. Dietrich lapped up to sixth place and took the win by 8.316 seconds over the rest of the field.
Rahmer backed up his fifth-place finish Friday against the World of Outlaws with a second-place run. Dietz, Moody, and Dylan Norris completed the top five.
“We were only good for the first 10-or-so laps, and then I wasn’t getting off of Turn 4 at all and wasn’t making up any time,” Rahmer said. “At the beginning, we were as fast as him. Some corners, I would gain on him and some he would pull a bit.
“I started to lose drive just when the top went away in four. It wasn’t bad, we just needed more drive off the corner or to carry more speed, somehow. The way we had the car, I couldn’t do it. I was a little tighter, but it wasn’t bad. It’s not what we wanted, but we came home in one piece, and we will go on to next Friday.”
In the 358 Modified main event, Louden Reimert started on the pole and turned it into a wire-to-wire victory in the 30-Lap main event.
Jeff Strunk got around Franke Cozze Sr. on the opening circuit to take over the runner-up spot. He got a clear shot at the leader after a Lap 15 caution for Brett Kressley, who hit the wall and flattened a tire.
Reimert fought off Strunk’s advances and held the lead. He wasn’t challenged the rest of the way and took the win by .923 seconds. Strunk settled for second, with Cozze, seventh-place starter Billy Pauch Jr., and Tim Buckwalter completing the top five.
The Finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 48-Danny Dietrich[1]; 2. 51-Freddie Rahmer[4]; 3. 39-Chase Dietz[2]; 4. 99M-Kyle Moody[5]; 5. 44-Dylan Norris[3]; 6. 23-Devon Borden[6]; 7. 75-Tyler Ross[8]; 8. 19M-Landon Myers[7]; 9. 90-Jordan Givler[11]; 10. 33-Riley Emig[10]; 11. 99A-Devin Adams[14]; 12. 49H-Bradley Howard[9]; 13. 9-Gordon Senft Jr[15]; 14. 1X-Chad Trout[12]; 15. 35-Tyler Esh[13]