From the Laurel Highlands Sprint Car Series
HESSTON, Penn. (September 4, 2016) — The Laurel Highlands IMCA Race Saver 305’s made their second visit in two weeks to the Hesston Five Star Speedway with another nice evening weather wise as 17 sprint cars signed in to race. Making their first starts with Laurel Highlands were two promising “rookie” drivers, Kirsten Hess and John Walp, also Scott Lutz was making his second appearance at Hesston. It was good to see Ron Aurand back in action as it appears he and his team have figured out their engine woes as Ron ran strong all evening. Judi Bates and Hunter McCracken were also on hand this week and it was good to see Western Pa drivers Greg Dobrosky, Kyle Colwell, Brian Haney and Rob Felix make the trip to west-central Pa. The story of the night had to have been the popular feature win of veteran Race Saver driver Joe Zap of Roaring Spring, Pa. who led all 20-laps of the green to checker main event. Joe has been a regular with Laurel Highlands for several years now and has won preliminary events but never won a feature with our series. He has had his up and downs with mechanical issues, close finishes and is always a driver who is in the hunt so when it is your night everything seems to fall into place. Joe Zap and Ron Aurand brought the 16 car field to the green flag with Zap jumping into the lead followed by Aurand, Greg Dobrosky and Scott Lutz with Reed Thompson and Drew Ritchey in hot pursuit. There was plenty of action throughout the field as positions were swapped back and forth as the black #33z set the pace, Ron Aurand gave chase all the time as he stayed close to Zap but was not able to reel him in. At the conclusion of the feature in victory lane Joe was thrilled to have finally put the win under his belt as he gave a nice interview for the fans.