BECHTELSVILLE, Pa. — Hard work, determination and the never-give-up attitude eventually pays off, as Ron Haring Jr. learned on Saturday night at Grandview Speedway.
Haring, who had been in position to win several times before in his career, could never get things to go his way. But he finally put everything into place and scored his first win in the 30-lap T.P. Trailer NASCAR Modified feature at Grandview.
Haring led the feature the entire way, surviving two late race stoppages, one caution with four laps remaining and a red flag with just two laps to go to eventually score the feature win.
Brian Hirthler was running second and battling with leader Kyle Smith for a win in the 25-lap T.P. Truck Equipment NASCAR Sportsman feature when misfortune struck leader Smith with just four laps to go, giving Hirthler the lead as he would go on to his sixth feature win of the season.
After all the red hot competition on Saturday night, Craig Von Dohren emerged with his 13th career T.P. Trailer Modified track championship, and Hirtthler would score his third career T.P. Truck Equipment Sportsman title.
The feature race winners each received bonus money from T.P. Trailers and Truck Equipment, who provide weekly winners bonus money in the race program that was part of the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Racing Series.
The T.P. Trailer Modified feature appeared as if it may run straight through without a caution, as the first 26 laps were run under green flag conditions.
Haring took the lead on the opening green flag and set a quick pace, reaching lapped traffic by lap nine. As the laps continued to click off, action continued to be fierce with Brett Gilmore, Justin Grim, Mike Lisowski and Tim Buckwalter as they fought for positions behind second place.
With the long period of green flag racing, Haring began to steadily work his way through the lapped traffic. Biehn and Whitmoyer would close a little bit on Haring, but never close enough to offer a challenge.
After waiting for a number of years for a win, Haring had to wait through a red flag, the ensuing delay and then another restart before being able to grab that elusive victory. The final restart proved no problem, as Haring pulled away from the field, led the final two laps and scored career win number one at Grandview.Â
Haring was followed by Whitmoyer, Trapper Jr., Buckwalter, Umbenhauer, Strunk, Biehn, track champion Von Dohren, Gilmore and Doug Manmiller.
The track championship for Von Dohren is his third consecutive and 13th overall. He scored his first point crown at Grandview during the 1988 racing season. He had a banner season this year, scoring eight point race wins on his way to the championship and twelve overall victories.