PORT ROYAL, Pa. – Jared Esh capitalized on a front row starting spot to score his second Port Royal Speedway Weikert’s Livestock 410 Sprint Car victory during Bobby Rahal Toyota of Lewistown night on Saturday.
The win was his first at the helm of the Golden Flavor Sesame Sticks No. 98 since taking over the reigns of the sprinter last season and achieved a personal goal for Esh in scoring a win in the same car his father, Doug, drove years ago to victory at the Juniata County oval.
“When I got in this car last season I made it a goal to get a win in this car as I don’t know if any father and son have ever won races in the same car at the same track before,” said Esh. “This is a pretty cool deal for me and I’m just really happy to be sitting in victory lane again.”
Esh lined up on the front row alongside of Tyler Bear for the 25-lap feature and jumped out to the early lead over fourth-place starter Justin Whittall.
Sixth-place starter and early season winner Jeff Halligan was an early mover as he moved into the fourth position on lap two and two laps later he cracked the podium. One lap prior, track points leader and eigth-place starter Logan Wagner moved into the top-five.
Esh was setting sail on the field and was in heavy lapped traffic by lap 8. One lap later Halligan got by Whittall for the runner up spot and two laps later Wagner dispatched of Whittall for the third spot.
With 12 laps remaining, Esh held a neatly 3 second advantage over the field but as lapped cars battled in front of the leaders Halligan cut two seconds off the lead with 10 to go.
“I kept a good pace there in lapped traffic and I felt like we were checked out pretty good,” said Esh. “I really just needed to stay in a rhythym and not give it away. I got in the fence there a couple times running the top and I was just trying to stay patient. They were going to have to slide me to get by me.”
Esh was able to to put a few lapped cars in between him and Halligan, which allowed him to extend his advantage to nearly two seconds with six laps to go. However, the advantage was wiped out two laps later when Whittall, who was running fourth at the time, blew a tire on the frontstretch and brought out the caution.
Halligan tried a slider in turn’s one and two on the restart, but Esh was too good on the top and drove away.He tried the move again in turn’s three and four, but again Esh pulled away to lead the lap. One lap later the final caution of the event flew when Trenton Sheaffer got turned around in turn one.
Halligan again tried the bottom on the restart and the move opened the door for Wagner to pull alongside of him for the runner up spot down the backstretch. The battle for secone was just what Esh needed as he pulled away with ease.
Esh would go on to take the checkered flag by an dvantage of 2.430 seconds over Wagner, Halligan, Mike Wagner and Dylan Cisney.
“This has been about the most trying season of my career and we pulled out a new car ladt week and found some speed and ended up hitting the wall and my guys worked up to 2am last night to get this car ready to race,” said Esh. “This means so much to me to see the hard work pay off and I just can’t thank my guys enough for giving me the opportunity and helping to make this a reality.”
For Wagner, it was another runner-up finish for the points leader and his third consecutive at the Speedway. Wagner has been a mark of consistancy this season with 10 total top-five finishes in 11 starts this season.
“I’m really happy for our Zemco team as it’s always good to be on the podium and here standing on the frontstretch at the end of the night,” said Wagner.
“Our car is so good right now, but ultimately Jared had the best car and we just needed to get up there earlier to have a shot at the win.”
Jason Covert won the companion super late model main event.