Port Royal, PA — (September 7, 2015) — Myerstown’s Brent Marks whizzed from third to the lead and was also the third leader during the final lap, to pick up Monday’s 64th annual Labor Day Classic for 410 sprint cars at Port Royal Speedway worth $4,000.
Marks’ first overall win of the year anywhere capped off an amazing daylight performance by the sprint cars on the slick track that produced multiple grooves of racing and exciting side by side battles from beginning to end.
In the 18-lap econo late model main event, Eric Irvin picked up his fourth win of the season over Andrew Yoder and in doing so narrowed Yoder’s scant 20-point lead over himself to just five markers for the season title in a battle that concludes this coming weekend.
To end the afternoon program Travis McClelland prevailed in the 15-lap Central Pa Legends cars event, in a first ever appearance by the cars at the big oval.
York’s Chase Dietz started third in the 25-lap Labor Day Classic for sprint cars and drove by Trenton Schaeffer and polesitter Dylan Cisney for the lead on the first lap.
However Dietz’s pace was slowed before he could really get going on the second lap thanks to a caution period.
Dietz was leading over Schaeffer and Cisney on the seventh tour when another yellow appeared, this time finding seventh starter Marks up to fifth.
Before the caution, all eyes had turned to Logan Wagner who went into no-mans land on the extreme highest line around the track, flirting with the rail but passing cars at will.
And once Wagner took that approach, others followed suit including Aaron Ott, Greg Hodnett and Danny Dietrich along with Cisney.
Marks motored into fourth on the restart, getting around Dietrich who was the defending event champion.
And a lap later Marks took over third behind Cisney with Dietrich following him through.
During all this action at the front, 16th starter Hodnett was making good on his advance efforts to be up to sixth behind Ott when a final yellow flag slowed the pace with 12 laps to go when Logan Wagner saw his high wire act come to an end with a blown left rear tire.
A major shuffling took place on the restart when some went high and some went low with Dylan Cisney drilling Dietz off of the bottom for the lead in the third and fourth turns as Marks, Dietrich and Ott battled one another for position.
Dietrich rimrode around Marks for third with 10 laps to go and then advanced to second a lap later as Dietz began to fade from the front after a valiant effort.
Dietrich closed up on Cisney for the lead after a few laps to track him down and with eight laps to go Ott made a two car pass, getting around both Marks and Dietz to claim third as the fans were pressed with which battle to watch at the front.
With five laps to go the order was Cisney, Dietrich, Ott, Marks and Dietz and the battle would go down to the wire.
Ott muscled around Dietrich deep in the third corner after getting to his inside at the end of the backchute with three laps to go and then he honed in on leader Cisney.
But at the same time, Cisney ran up on a couple of backmarkers running both the bottom and middle of the track and that set up the wild finish that wasn’t decided until the exit of turn four.
As Cisney pushed his car into the first corner trying to get around the backmarker, Ott blasted the top into the corner and took the lead but at the same time Marks surged as low as he could go into the turns and got by Cisney as well.
And then as they split the backmarker exiting the second turn, Marks drew even with Ott and then shot into weak control on the backstretch with Ott following directly behind him through the final turns to come up short by less than a second at the finish.
Cisney ended up third followed by Dietrich and Hodnett.
Sixth through 10th went to Dietz, Lucas Wolfe, Dave Ely, Lance Dewease and Curt Stroup.
Heats for the 24 cars went to Cisney, Dietz and Ott.
Eric Irvin would lead all 18 laps of the econo late model main with Jared Fulkroad chasing in second until lap five when Andrew Yoder took over from 12th starting spot.
But second was as far as Yoder would go as Irvin had the race well in hand, now sitting just five points back for the season title with a final race looming on September 12.
Tim Fedder rode home third followed by Tim Gray and Todd Snook.
Twin heats went to Todd Snook and Devin Hart.
Chad Earnst led the first four laps of the legends feature before Joe Enrisman took over.
Travis McClelland then took the lead on the seventh tour and the pair of McClelland and Enrisman would then battle to the finish with McClelland taking the victory over Enrisman, Harlin Leppo, Bill Diehl and Earnst.
Heats went to Randy Fetterolf and Earnst.
A two-division demolition derby ended the day with Eli Love and Chuck McCartle taking the twin $1,000 paydays.
There was 35 cars in action.
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Race Results:
Feature Finishes
9/7/15
410 sprints, 25 laps: 1. Brent Marks, 2. Aaron Ott, 3. Dylan Cisney, 4. Danny Dietrich, 5. Greg Hodnett, 6. Chase Dietz, 7. Lucas Wolfe, 8. Dave Ely, 9. Lance Dewease, 10. Curt Stroup, 11. Mike Wagner, 12. Joey Hershey, 13. Logan Wagner, 14. Dan Shetler, 15. Wayne Dadetto, 16. Trenton Schaeffer, 17. Vince Snyder, 18. Karl Baker, 19. Troy Fraker, 20. Cory Thornton, 21. Blane Heimbach, 22. Justin Barger, 23. Mike Wagner II. , 24. Colby Womer.
Econo late models, 18 laps: 1. Eric Irvin, 2. Andrew Yoder, 3. Tim Fedder, 4. Tim Gray, 5. Todd Snook,. 6. Jared Fulkroad, 7. Dillan Stake, 8. Devin Hart, 9. Jason Nace, 10. Harold Ranck, 11. Chase Bowsman, 12. Curt Dunn
Legends, 15 laps: 1. Travis McClelland, 2. Joe Enrisman, 3. Harlin Leppo, 4. Bill Diehl, 5. Chad Ernst, 6. Bob Stough, 7. Rick Hartwig, 8. John Lytor, 9. Jacob Feltch, 10. Brian Hayburger, 11. Tony Mrakovich, 12. Randy Fetterolf, 13. Scott Deaner Sr., 14. Robert Shaw