HANOVER, PA – Steve Owings doesn’t believe in practice, at least not when it comes to a regular Friday night show at Trail-Way Speedway.
It’s not that Owings is arrogant or is trying to be cagey or sly by not coming out for hot laps. He’s just raced at the Hanover, Pa., facility for over 30 years and knows all he needs to about getting around the place … real fast.
The process of not coming out for warm-ups hasn’t hurt his performance. Owings showed that again Friday night at Trail-Way Speedway, when he captured his second straight 358 Sprint Car main event at the speedway and fourth overall.
“I’ve been running here since 1988-89, and I don’t need any more laps around here,” Owings said. “All it really does is put more laps on the motor.
“We have such a good maintenance program. My guys do a good job during the week, and Steve Rucker comes down to adjust the valves. We know it’s going to run unless something fluky happens.”
Continued Owings, “We don’t do it to be ignorant. We’ve just run so many laps here that it doesn’t make sense to put more laps on the motor.”
Bo Gordon Jr. started on the pole and jumped out to the early lead, beating Austen Treuchet through the first two corners.
A three-car incident slowed action on the third circuit. David Holbrook and Cody Phillips got the worst of it, with both drivers getting upside down to bring out the red flag.
Owings used the restart to surge to the front from his eighth-place starting spot. By the time the fourth circuit was scored, he was running in the third position.
That was just the start of Owings’ assault. The Westminster, Md, driver went three wide with Mike Bittinger and Gordon on Lap 5 and ripped around the bottom in Turns 3 and 4 to take over the top spot.
“We had a really good car tonight, and the track was more to my liking,” Owings said. “Bitty [Bittinger] just got stuck behind the 13 [Gordon], and he picked to go high, and we went down low. That was, basically, the race.”
The only hiccup for Owings came late in the race. He got caught behind a host of lapped cars and struggled to get by, which allowed Bittinger to close the gap.
It wasn’t enough to stop Owings’ march to victory. He got past Nat Tuckey and drove away to score the 2.682-second win over Bittinger, Cody Fletcher, Cameron Smith, and Riley Emig.
“Tuckey ran a good line and was battling with two or three cars,” Owings said. “He’s like Ryan Newman. He’s harder to pass than a kidney stone.
“Like I said, he was running a good race with two or three guys that were in his group. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
Trail-Way Speedway
Hanover, Pa.
Friday, September 10, 2021
For Immediate Release
358 SPRINT CARS
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 35-Steve Owings[8]; 2. 12-Mike Bittinger[4]; 3. 66A-Cody Fletcher[10]; 4. 69-Cameron Smith[5]; 5. 33-Riley Emig[13]; 6. 7W-Jayden Wolf[9]; 7. 13-Bo Gordon Jr[1]; 8. 8CR-Mason Chaney[3]; 9. 22B-Nat Tuckey[12]; 10. 44-Steven Cox[11]; 11. (DNF) 77-David Holbrook[6]; 12. (DNF) 51-Austen Treuchet[2]; 13. (DNF) 1-Cody Phillips[7]
Lap Leaders: Bo Gordon Jr. (1-4), Steve Owings (5-25)
358 Sprint Car Heat 1 (10 Laps): 1. 77-David Holbrook[1]; 2. 8CR-Mason Chaney[4]; 3. 51-Austen Treuchet[3]; 4. 13-Bo Gordon Jr[6]; 5. 7W-Jayden Wolf[7]; 6. 44-Steven Cox[5]; 7. (DNF) 33-Riley Emig[2]
358 Sprint Car Heat 2 (10 Laps): 1. 35-Steve Owings[2]; 2. 12-Mike Bittinger[4]; 3. 69-Cameron Smith[1]; 4. 1-Cody Phillips[3]; 5. 66A-Cody Fletcher[5]; 6. 22B-Nat Tuckey[6]