It was a test of wills at Port Royal Speedway as a part of the Keith Kauffman Classic on Saturday night.
Anthony Macri battled to win his third straight and fourth overall Keith Kauffman Classic, while Joey Amantea and Craig Perigo would win tight contests in their respective wingless classes.
The start of the Weikert Livestock A-main would start with carnage where multiple cars would get upside down and torn apart in turn one collecting the likes of Lance Dewease, Austin Bishop, A.J. Flick, Steve Buckwalter, Jeff Halligan and Callum Williamson.
Once the wreckage cleared, Logan Wagner and Chase Dietz would lead the field back to green with 30 laps still to be run.
Macri, who started fourth, would nearly see his race come to an end with 17 laps remaining when he made contact with a lapped car of Aaron Bollinger who would flip in turn two and collect Logan Wagner in the process.
Dietz would lead the feature event for the opening 16 laps of the race when his left rear tire would tear to shreds. That ended his night in the process, allowing Macri in the No. 39m to inherit the lead. It still wouldn’t be smooth sailing for the driver out of Dillsburg, Pa., as T.J. Stutts would make a charge and pass Macri off of turn two with 13 laps remaining.
Stutts would lead the next five laps before Macri would overtake the top spot back in turn one and run away to pick up the win by over 1.8 seconds and take home the $15,000 payday courtesy of Valley Supply.
“It took us a couple laps to get our car going,” said Macri in victory lane. “He had a really good restart and he went up to the top after that. Clean air is very important on big tracks now. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to be very good following him on the top, so I pulled my wing back a little bit and tried to work the bottom. I got close enough to him coming down the frontstretch to throw a slider on him and just knew I had to keep my momentum up the rest of the race and here we are.”
Feature Results (30 Laps)
1. 39M-Anthony Macri[4]; 2. 11-TJ Stutts[5]; 3. 51-Freddie Rahmer[9]; 4. 55-Mike Wagner[8]; 5. 5W-Lucas Wolfe[17]; 6. 67-Justin Whittall[6]; 7. 5-Dylan Cisney[15]; 8. 1A-Jacob Allen[19]; 9. 48-Danny Dietrich[3]; 10. 23-Devon Borden[10]; 11. 77-Mike Walter[13]; 12. 5D-Jacob Dykstra[23]; 13. 91-Kyle Reinhardt[18]; 14. 33-Gerard McIntyre Jr[21]; 15. 1-Chase Dietz[1]; 16. 69K-Logan Wagner[2]; 17. 95H-Kody Hartlaub[11]; 18. 19-Aaron Bollinger[24]; 19. 45-Jeff Halligan[7]; 20. 2-AJ Flick[12]; 21. 12D-Lance Dewease[14]; 22. 39-Callum Williamson[16]; 23. 17B-Steve Buckwalter[20]; 24. 35-Austin Bishop[22]; 25. (DNS) 99-Devin Adams; 26. (DNS) 95-Garrett Bard; 27. (DNS) 12-Blane Heimbach; 28. (DNS) 97-Brie Hershey; 29. (DNS) 88-Tony Jackson; 30. (DNS) 47K-Kody Lehman; 31. (DNS) 19M-Jett Mann; 32. (DNS) 66-Ryan Newton; 33. (DNS) 17-Dylan Norris; 34. (DNS) 10C-Mark Smith; 35. (DNS) 11T-Mike Thompson
Wingless Recap
In USAC East Coast Wingless 360 competition, fans were in for a classic feature event as they saw the top two cars in the series — Alex Bright and Briggs Danner — spin each other out in turn two.
That allowed Joey Amantea and Christian Bruno to then trade the top spot lap after lap.
Amantea and Bruno would inherit the top two spots with 10 laps remaining and for those final 10 circuits, they would trade the lead over and over again. Bruno would lead the field with six laps to go coming to a restart and would battle with Amantea until Amantea took the lead for the final time with three laps remaining.
Bruno would attempt to run down Amantea in the final three circuits but would have to battle with Steven Drivicki and Carmen Perigo. Perigo would ultimately overtake Bruno for the runner-up spot but it was Amantea who would claim the $2,000 paycheck at the end of the 25-lap A-main.
In wingless super sportsman competition, Craig Perigo, Cliff Brian Jr., Steve Wilbur and Trent Yoder would all battle for the top spot in the final eight laps.
Perigo would hold off multiple attempts from Brian with Wilbur nipping on his heels throughout the event while Yoder would take advantage on a late race restart to get by Wilbur for the final podium spot.
Perigo met every attempt for the lead with good track position and would hold on for the win.