DANNER COMPLETES USAC EC WEEKEND SWEEP WITH GRANDVIEW WIN
By: Nick Fillman – USAC ECSC
Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania (May 15, 2021)………For the second night in a row, rookie driver Briggs Danner drove his way into Rapid Tire, USAC East Coast Sprint Car Series, victory lane. The second victory for Danner is his third of the season, allowing him to also continue add to his series points lead.
Kenny Miller lll and Damon Paul brought the field to green for the twenty-five lap feature event, the second ever event contested by the series at the Grandview Speedway. Paul moved passed Miller for the race lead with Miller in second, and Danner third. At the completion of lap two, Danner had moved by both Miller and Paul and taken the feature event lead. Steven Drevicki was also on the move from his eight place starting spot and was into fifth by lap four.
The first caution event of the night would fly on lap seven as Christopher Allen spun in the middle of turns three and four. The restart of the feature event saw Danner continue to lead over, Kenny Miller, Damon Paul, Steven Drevicki and Bruce Buckwalter Jr. As the field went green and drivers began to make more moves inside the top ten, with Alex Bright being up to the sixth place position from his eleventh place starting spot. Rookie driver Tom Savage suffered a right rear tire failure on lap nine, and slow on the front street to bring out the second caution event of the evening.
Danner again nailed his restart on lap nine following the caution, and remained ahead of Kenny Miller lll, who was under heavy fire from three time champion Steven Drevicki. Damon Paul, Alex Bright, and Bruce Buckwalter continued to round out the top five of the feature event with heavy contention for the remainder of the positions inside of the top ten.
A red flag was thrown on lap fourteen of the feature event when Eric Jennings went for a wild series of flips through corners three and four. The caution flag had initially been displayed for the slowing car of Ed Aikin in the middle of turns three and four following a collapsed front end on the Aikin machine due to contact with an infield tire.
Danner again lead the field to the green flag for the restart on lap fourteen with Miller, Drevicki, Bright, and Buckwalter in tow. The field was able to score another lap before the caution flag would fly yet again as Kenny Miller lll clipped the inside wall, causing a front end failure sending the car into the infield down the back stretch before making contact with an infield light pole barrier.
The restart on lap fifteen featured the heaviest competition for Briggs Danner of the evening with Steven Drevicki restarting second, and Alex Bright third. The top three in series points starting nose to tail had the opportunity to battle amongst themselves for the feature event win.
Unfortunately for Damon Paul, his solid run inside the top ten came to an end on the lap fifteen restart as Paul spun coming off of turn four collecting: Jonathan Swanson, Mike Thompson, and Blaine Emery. Emery would be able to re-fire for the remainder of the feature event.
Briggs Danner lead the field to the green flag again on the lap fifteen restart with Drevicki and Bright in tow with ten laps to go for the feature event win. Drevicki found a lane that worked to his advantage for a handful of laps running in the middle of the speedway, getting alongside Danner on more than one occasion before the track began to lay rubber along the inside groove.
Danner held off the advances of Steven Drevicki as Alex Bright tried to make it a three car battle for the lead and collected his second feature event win of the weekend adding to his resume of USAC East Coast Sprint Car Series victories. Steven Drevicki defended a last lap move by Alex Bright for second, with Bruce Buckwalter, and Tommy Kunsman rounding out the top five.
Briggs Danner is no stranger to Grandview Speedway as the nineteen year old rookie has a large number of laps at the speedway behind the wheel of a 358 modified, and a handful of laps at Grandview with a 410 sprint car in USAC National Series competition. Danner found victory lane with the USAC East Coast Sprint Car Series again for the third time in 2021, and fourth time of his career. Three of the four victories for Danner have come in his first ever trip with a sprint car in his debut. Danner also has an incredible run of four feature wins in eight event attempts since his debut in September of 2020. Danner’s sponsor of E Schneider & Sons matched the winners share of tonight’s feature event, with Danner collecting a $3,000 payday.
Steven Drevicki was able to get things back on track after an unfortunate incident at Bedford ended his shot at a double podium weekend. While Drevicki will not be full time with the series and will be making multiple USAC National series starts throughout the season, Drevicki finds himself third in points not far out of the points championship contention.
Alex Bright continued his consistency Saturday night, backing up his runner up finish on Friday at the Bedford Speedway. Bright make contact with the right rear of Kenny Miller lll in their heat race early on in the night missing out on the redraw by one position. Bright started the feature event in eleventh, and despite a broken bolt on the bird-cage following early feature contact with the outside wall, Bright maintained and finished a strong third.
Bruce Buckwalter Jr. had quite the weekend with the series, but the teams hard work and resilience paid off with a strong fourth place effort on Saturday night. The team fought fueling issues all night on Friday night at the Bedford Speedway, resulting in a 21st place finish. The team worked hard all day until late in the afternoon diagnosing the problem, fixing their fueling issue, discovering an issue in the rear end of the car, and making it to the track in time for the nights event. Buckwalter collected his fist heat race win of the season and ran a smooth and clean race resulting in a well-earned fourth place effort.
Rounding out the top five of the feature event field would be Tommy Kunsman, who counties to impressive in his rookie season behind the wheel of a sprint car. The former midget regular, and many time micro sprint feature event winner, has been extremely impressive since making the move to join the series. Kunsman currently sits fourth in the series points standings and is beginning to knock on the door of his first podium. With plenty of racing left in the 2021 season, a podium finish and potentially more could be on the horizon for the Bethlehem, PA driver.
While not finishing inside the top five on Saturday night, Nash Ely ended up sixth one spot shy of a double top five weekend. Rookie Ely scored his career best finish on Friday night at Bedford and backed up his speed with a solid top six run in his first ever 360 sprint car start at Grandview.
Thirty different drivers entered a Rapid Tire, USAC East Coast Sprint Car Series, presented by Capitol Renegade series event this weekend between Bedford and Grandview. A sign of growth and development in the series that will hopefully only continue to grow as the season goes on with both increased car counts, and heightened competition on the track surface.
Up next for the USAC East Coast Sprint Car Series is the second ever visit to the wide and fast Selinsgrove Speedway. Last season the series made its debut at the historic oval with Brady Bacon invading the field and grabbing the feature event victory over Steven Drevicki.
The USAC East Coast Sprint Car Series will also be having a round table discussion at the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing on Sunday, May 16th discussing the growth and development of wingless sprit car racing on the east coast.
As always, follow along with our social media pages for all the latest news, updates, and alerts on Facebook at: USAC East Coast Sprint Cars, and on Twitter at @USACECSC.
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USAC RAPID TIRE EAST COAST SPRINT CAR PRESENTED BY CAPITOL TRAILERS RACE RESULTS: May 15, 2021 – Grandview Speedway – Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania
FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting position in brackets) 1. 83-Bruce Buckwalter Jr. [1], 2. 83s-Billy Ney [5], 3. 17J-Jonathan Swanson [3], 4. 7-Ed Aikin [7], 5. 3BC-Nash Ely [8], 6. 27c-Craig Pellegrini [4], 7. 11-Mike Thompson [6], 8. 12-Blaine Emery [2]. NT
SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting position in brackets) 1. 19-Steven Drevicki [3], 2. 5G-Briggs Danner [4], 3. 23m-Kenny Miller III [7], 4. 20-Alex Bright [8], 5. 71-Chris Allen Jr. [6], 6. 16cw-Eric Jennings [5], 7. 75-Lou Cicconi Jr. [1], 8. 64-Rich Carnathan [2]. NT
THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting position in brackets) 1. 21K-Tommy Kunsman [2], 2. 22B-Troy Betts [3], 3. 57-Damon Paul [8], 4. 10m-Mike Meyers [5], 5. 38s-Tom Savage [1], 6. 88J-Joey Amantea [7], 7. 117-David Swanson [6], 8. 67-Jason Cherry [4]. NT
SEMI: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting position in brackets) 1. Craig Pellegrini [1], 2. Eric Jennings [2], 3. Mike Thompson [4], 4. Blaine Emery [7], 5. Jason Cherry [9], 6. Joey Amantea [3], 7. David Swanson [6], 8. Lou Cicconi Jr. [5], 9. Rich Carnathan [8]. NT
FEATURE: (25 laps, starting position in brackets) 1. Briggs Danner [4], 2. Steven Drevicki [8], 3. Alex Bright [11], 4. Bruce Buckwalter Jr. [3], 5. Tommy Kunsman [5], 6. Nash Ely [13], 7. Troy Betts [9], 8. Mike Meyers [12], 9. Billy Ney [7], 10. Jason Cherry [20], 11. Craig Pellegrini [16], 12. Joey Amantea [21], 13. Blaine Emery [19], 14. Damon Paul [2], 15. Jonathan Swanson [6], 16. Mike Thompson [18], 17. Kenny Miller III [1], 18. Chris Allen Jr. [14], 19. Ed Aikin [10], 20. Eric Jennings [17], 21. Tom Savage [15]. NT
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Lap 1 Damon Paul, Laps 2-25 Briggs Danner.
USAC RAPID TIRE EAST COAST SPRINT CAR PRESENTED BY CAPITOL TRAILERS POINTS: 1-Briggs Danner-305, 2-Alex Bright-296, 3-Steven Drevicki-266, 4-Damon Paul-209, 5-Nash Ely-197, 6-Kenny Miller III-191, 7-Chris Allen Jr.-189, 8-Joey Amantea-187, 9-Bruce Buckwalter Jr.-180, 10-Mike Thompson-178.
NEXT USAC RAPID TIRE EAST COAST SPRINT CAR PRESENTED BY CAPITOL TRAILERS RACE: May 22, 2021 – Selinsgrove Speedway – Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania
PENSKE RACING SHOCKS CERTIFICATE WINNERS: Briggs Danner, Steven Drevicki & Alex Bright
ULTRA SHIELD RACING PRODUCTS CERTIFICATE WINNERS: Steven Drevicki (2nd) & Mike Meyers (8th)
