By Shawn Brouse
Selinsgrove, Pa –Selinsgrove Speedway will honor one of the greatest promoters of all time coming up this Saturday, August 29 with the 40th annual running of the Jack Gunn Memorial for Modern Heritage 410 Sprint Cars at 7:30 pm.
The race will go 30 laps and pay $5,000 to the winner.
For the first time in 20 years on Saturday, the race will be contested as a 410 sprint car event.
First run in 1981 at Selinsgrove and won by Lynn Paxton, the Gunn Memorial honors late Selinsgrove promoter Jack Gunn, a native of Hancock, Maryland.
Gunn was a Hall of Fame Promoter who heralded the speedway as announcer and promoter during the 1970s.
After his untimely death from cancer at the age of 48 in 1980, Gunn was honored nationally as the 1979 Promoter of the Year.
Having started out as an announcer in the area in the early 1960s, Gunn honed his skill on the microphone while eventually relaying his talents into promoter at Selinsgrove as well as at other area speedways.
It was during his tenure at the helm of Selinsgrove and other tracks like Williams Grove, Penn National and Hagerstown, Maryland, that Gunn rose to prominence on the local and national scene while taking his tracks along for the ride.
Gunn’s mark on the region was to help raise sprint car racing to not only a weekly division but a premiere weekly headline division at that.
In his day, Jack Gunn was known as the most powerful promoter in the East.
And it’s that power and reputation that Selinsgrove has honored with the Gunn Memorial each and every season since 1981.
Run as a 410 sprint car race through the 2000 season, no one has won the Gunn Memorial more at Selinsgrove than Todd Shaffer of Millerstown who scored four times in the event.
Keith Kauffman is a three-time winner.
Run as a 358 sprint event from 2001 – 2008, Blane Heimbach proved victorious three times during the time period.
The race has been contested as a 360 sprint contest since 2009 with Mark Smith, Trevor Lewis and Davie Franek each taking two wins during the run.
Kyle Reinhardt, already a super sprint winner at the track this season, is the defending Selinsgrove Gunn Memorial winner, aboard a 360 sprint car.
SELINSGROVE SPEEDWAY JACK GUNN MEMORIAL WINNERS
1981 – Lynn Paxton,
1982 – Steve Kinser
1983 – Keith Kauffman
1984 – Steve Kinser
1985 – Doug Wolfgang,
1986 – Doug Wolfgang,
1987 – Jim Nace,
1988 – Stevie Smith,
1989 – Todd Shaffer,
1990 – Stevie Smith,
1991 – Randy Wolfe,
1992 – Randy Wolfe,
1993 – Cris Eash,
1994 – Jim Nace,
1995 – Todd Shaffer,
1996 – Keith Kauffman,
1997 – Todd Shaffer,
1998 – Fred Rahmer,
1999 – Jeff Shepard,
2000 – Todd Shaffer,
2001 – T. J. Stutts, (358)
2002 – Chad Layton, (358)
2003 – Blane Heimbach, (358)
2004 – Rick Hench, (358)
2005 – Jason Shultz, (358)
2006 – Blane Heimbach, (358)
2007 – Dave Calaman, (358)
2008 – Blane Heimbach, (358)
2009 – Trevor Lewis, (360)
2010 – Trevor Lewis, (360)
2011 – Shane Stewart, (360)
2012 – Blane Heimbach, (360)
2013 – JJ Grasso, Eldreth (360)
2014 – Aaron Ott (360)
2015 – Mark Smith, (360)
2016 – Mark Smith, (360)
2017 – Davie Franek, (360)
2018 – Davie Franek, (360)
2019 – Kyle Reinhardt (360)