By Shawn Brouse
Port Royal – Ryan Taylor of Perkasie scored the biggest 410 sprint car win of his career Saturday night at Port Royal Speedway by first driving by Fred Rahmer for the lead and then later holding off a hard charging Chad Layton for the prestigious victory.
At the end of the night, Taylor’s total event financial take was $11,580 including lap money and his prize money for winning the Dream A Main itself and finishing second in his semi main.
The entire night’s action was delayed at the start by one hour thanks to a pair of heavy but short downbursts of rain that hit the facility around 5:15 pm.
A near event record 45 super sprint cars entered the event that thanks to the rain produced electrifyingly exciting speed and a fast time set by Mark Smith that was just one-tenth of a second off of the track record.
The event honored, declared and bestowed laurels upon car owner Patty Beam and driver Todd Shaffer as 2013 Living Legends.
In the revenge draw to set the front three rows of the Dream feature, Fred Rahmer pulled a number one and looked over the candidates available before handing off the pole to Taylor.
As it worked out, Rahmer lined up on the outside of the front row to start the lucrative feature event and the Salfordville veteran took the lead when green came out over Taylor.
But Taylor was strong and just as he did earlier in his semi when he drove from sixth to second on the nasty-fast oval by muscling past Mark Smith and Rahmer among others, he muscled Rahmer with what would be the race-winning move on the second circuit of the feature.
After completing lap one hot on Rahmer’s tail, Taylor stuck his No. 20 to Rahmer’s inside in the first corner and drove up off of the second corner side by side with him.
And as the pair headed for the scoreboard, Taylor stayed even with Rahmer and began to nose ahead as a battle of wills developed as the pair saw the third corner coming up quick with something needing to give before they set their mounts into the turn.
That’s when Taylor got the best of Rahmer and surged ahead for control as Rahmer fell back to second.
The red flag then appeared on the seventh tour when Davey Sammons crashed in the third turn, collecting Logan Wagner.
The restart had Taylor leading over Rahmer, third starter Layton, Lance Dewease and Doug Esh.
As Taylor bit fast and drove away when action resumed Layton went to work on Rahmer and muscled by for second with 20 laps to go before a caution flag slowed the pace on the 12th tour.
Laps 13 through 27 then went non stop and as the race moved into lapped traffic Layton began significantly closing the gap on Taylor and drew to within a car length as Taylor moved low in an effort to bypass slower cars.
And in fact, Layton all but had the move made in heavy traffic, having already moved to Taylor’s outside at another point when suddenly a final caution halted the break-neck pace that was being set on the lightning-fast and smooth oval with three laps to go.
That occurrence cleared the track for Taylor, which played to any leader’s advantage, and Taylor took the stroke of luck all the way to the bank for the checkers ahead of Layton by .898 seconds.
Layton also won his semi-main qualifying feature earlier in the night, making his total take on the night $7,280 including lap money.
Rahmer ended the feature in third, 1.631 seconds behind Taylor with $2,760 for his combined semi and A Main event efforts.
Brian Leppo, who was awarded one of the Packer’s Concessions fast time awards as the quickest timer in the even-numbered qualifiers semi main, finished fourth in the Dream feature and took home a total of $2,800.
Defending Dream winner Blane Heimbach started 10th in the feature and drove to fifth at the finish, pocketing $2,000 total.
Brian Montieth rode home sixth with $2,000 in his pocket followed by semi main winner Doug Esh in seventh who garnered a total of $3,620 on the night including lap money.
Mike Wagner was eighth in the Dream A after starting 19th with a $1,850 take including the A Main Hard Charger Award sponsored by Lelands.com and Big Daddy’s Grill and Chill.
Wagner was followed by Adam Wilt, $1,400; and an impressive night by Kyle Moody for $1,550 including an extra $100 as a lucky bonus finisher in the A sponsored by RE Davidson & Sons.
As noted, Layton and Esh split the semi main qualifying races worth $2,000 each plus lap money.
Taylor and Rahmer chased Layton to his semi win to earn a top six starting spot in the feature.
Tyler Bear earned the Lelands.com Hard Charger in the first semi worth $125.
Logan Wagner earned the $100 RE Davidson bonus position pay.
Wagner was also voted the 25th feature fan-voted starter after drawing the most raucous response from the crowd during a roll call of non-qualifying B Main contestants.
Brian Leppo chased Esh to his semi victory with Lance Dewease finishing third to move to the front of the feature starting grid.
TJ Stutts got the Lelands.com Hard Charger.
Alan Krimes earned the $100 RE Davidson bonus position pay.
Dan Shetler took a nasty backstretch flip in the first semi main but escaped injury.
Brent Marks flipped violently into and onto the first turn outside wall in the second semi but escaped injury.
Mark Smith won the B Main over Rodney Westhafer.
Joey Hershey won the non-qualifiers feature worth $600 and a complete set of Penske Shocks.
Smith set the overall fastest time of the night and was the odd qualifiers quick timer with a lap of 15.478 seconds and took home $200 in fast time awards from Packers and Freeland Tool and Die.
Leppo’s fast time for the even-numbered qualifiers, which was second quick overall, came in at 15.501 seconds, worth $100 from Packers.
Complimentary engine dynos valued at $500 each based on A Main finish went to Layton as the highest finishing Don Ott power plant while Rider Engines awarded dynos to Leppo as the highest finisher and Mark Smith as the lowest.
Tim Krape won his seventh pro stock feature of the season over Scott Landis, Dan Berry, Andrew Shoop and Kyle Rapp.
The 2013 Living Legends Dream Race is sponsored by: Slivinski Law Offices Of Selinsgrove, First National Bank Of Mifflintown and Lelands.com. Contingency Sponsors are: Packers Concessions, RE Davidson & Son, Lelands.com, Hoosier Tires, York County Racing Club, Hoseheads.com, DMI, Terry Ritzman, CRANKWERKZ, Rider Racing Engines, Don Ott Racing Engines, Penske Shocks, Mach 1 Chassis, Boulevard Car Wash, Big Daddy’s Gril & Chill, Keizer Wheels, Wings Unlimited, Goshorn Racing Supplies, Zemco Speed Equipment, Moose Blocks, GFY Racing Supply, Viper Venom Fuels, Leach Automotive Service, VRP Shocks, Bryan Imes Auctioneer, Rebecca Kerstetter Agency
August 3, 2013 feature finishes:
410 sprints, 30 laps, Living Legends Dream Race, 45 entries: 1. Ryan Taylor, 2. Chad Layton, 3. Fred Rahmer, 4. Brian Leppo, 5. Blane Heimbach, 6. Brian Montieth, 7. Doug Esh, 8. Mike Wagner, 9. Adam Wilt, 10. Kyle Moody, 11. Lucas Wolfe, 12. Cliff Brian, 13. Rodney Westhafer, 14. TJ Stutts, 15. Ryan Smith, 16. Jimmy Seger, 17. Lance Dewease, 18. Dylan Cisney, 19. Steve Buckwalter, 20. Curt Stroup, 21. Mike Erdley, 22. Keith Kauffman, 23. Davey Sammons, 24. Logan Wagner, 25. Mark Smith
Semi Main 1 (10 qualify): 1. Chad Layton, 2. Ryan Taylor, 3. Fred Rahmer, 4. Steve Buckwalter, 5. Dylan Cisney, 6. Kyle Moody, 7. Cliff Brian, 8. Ryan Smith, 9. Curt Stroup, 10. Mike Wagner, 11. Jimmy Seger, 12. Rodney Westhafer, 13. Keith Kuaffman, 14. Logan Wagner, 15. Jessica Anderson, 16. Tyler Bear, 17. Dustin Baney, 18. Rod Stroup, 19. Joey Hershey, 20. Dan Shetler, 21. Tracy Templin, 22. Mark Smith, 23. Trenton Scheaffer.
Semi Main 2 (10 qualify): 1. Doug Esh, 2. Brian Leppo, 3. Lance Dewease, 4. Brian Montieth, 5. Blane Heimbach, 6. Lucas Wolfe, 7. TJ Stutts, 8. Mike Erdley, 9. Davey Sammons, 10. Adam Wilt, 11. Nate Snyder, 12. Curt Michael, 13. Nicole Bower, 14. Troy Fraker, 15. Jack Thornton, 16. Daryl Stimeling, 17. Dave Blaney, 18. Vince Snyder, 19. Mark Coldren, 20. Dave Hahn, 21. Brent Marks, 22. Alan Krimes.
Overall Fast Time: Mark Smith
B main winner: Mark Smith
Non Qualifiers winner: Joey Hershey