YORK HAVEN, Pa. – Freddie Rahmer muscled by Anthony Macri on a restart with 19 laps to go and capped his season with his eighth of the year Saturday night at BAPS Motor Speedway.
Rahmer beat a charging Shane Stewart by 1.303 seconds to earn the $5,000 payday in the 30-lap Goofy’s Sprint Showdown at the four-tenths-mile dirt oval.
The Williams Grove and Lincoln Speedway track champion took the lead for good on lap 11 and set a strong pace in clean air, but received some fortune on a lap-15 restart to help close the deal.
Macri had Rahmer cleared on a slide job for the lead before the red flag came out for fifth-running Danny Dietrich and seventh-running Lucas Wolfe.
That reset the field and since a lap wasn’t completed, the ensuing restart went single-file, allowing Rahmer more separation the next time around.
“It just worked out in our favor,” Rahmer said. “Sometimes it does. We could’ve easily ran third with how the way it played out. We did a nice job on the restarts and getting position. … These cars are so equal nowadays, you have to find other ways to get an advantage.”
Rahmer timed third out of 35 cars on Saturday with a lap of 15.064 seconds. Lance Dewease was the fast qualifier with a lap of 14.714 seconds.
Wolfe got around Rahmer to win heat three, but Rahmer drew third in the redraw, behind Dewease and Macri, for the main event.
Dewease led the opening two laps before Macri unseated the National Sprint Car Hall of Famer for the top spot on lap three.
Moments later, a caution for Jordan Mackison, who wheeled the return of the iconic Apple No. 12, stacked the field back up and allowed Rahmer to pick off Dewease for second on lap four.
“Getting by Lance was critical,” Rahmer said.
Macri’s two-second lead over Rahmer on lap 11 vanished when Mackison brought out the race’s second caution and the ultimate stoppage that led to Rahmer’s race-winning slide job.
Macri picked the top on the restart and Rahmer took advantage of the bottom, sliding his way to the lead in yet another battle between Pennsylvania’s finest young racers.
Four laps later, a caution for JJ Grasso bunched the field back up and even though the bottom did the job for Rahmer on the previous restart, he chose the top.
That decision nearly backfired, as Macri counteracted with a slide job of his own. But that’s when the red flag came out for Dietrich and Wolfe under the flag stand, and the next restart was then be single-file.
“[Macri] had me beat going into [turn] one,” Rahmer said. “I might’ve been able to get down the bank and get alongside him but I didn’t because the red came out. It would’ve been close. It was the wrong decision going to the top there on that restart. Thinking back on it, it seemed right at the time, but I passed all my guys in the middle or on the bottom previous to that. I judged wrong.
“We caught a break. Sometimes you have to get lucky, too.”
Macri, on the other hand, didn’t have things go his way. After leading nine laps, the 21-year-old finished fourth and lost grip of second with five laps to go as Stewart and Logan Schuchart slipped by in traffic.
Going into the final sprint car feature in Pennsylvania and on the east coast, Macri remained within reach of the Central Pennsylvania points title.
He needed to either win and have Dietrich finish worse than seventh or place second and have Dietrich finish outside the top 10.
Those two scenarios unraveled in the waning stages, but instead Dietrich narrowingly escaped as the 2020 Central Pennsylvania points champion.
Dewease faded to fifth, while Tyler Ross, Jacob Allen, Brent Marks, Kyle Reinhardt, and Gio Scelzi rounded out the top 10.
Mackison, driving the car made famous by sprint car icons Greg Hodnett and Fred Rahmer, finished 22nd.
The finish:
Freddie Rahmer, Shane Stewart, Logan Schuchart, Anthony Macri, Lance Dewease, Tyler Ross, Jacob Allen, Brent Marks, Kyle Reinhardt, Gio Scelzi, Steve Buckwalter, Billy Dietrich, Doug Hammaker, Dallas Schott, Kyle Moody, Matt Campbell, Brent Shearer, Danny Dietrich, Lucas Wolfe, Zach Newlin, JJ Grasso, Jordan Mackison, Tony Fiore.