By Marty Czekala
BATAVIA, N.Y. – Sometimes, the best wins come when you least expect them.
The night before Saturday’s CRSA Sprints showdown at The Dirt Track at Genesee, Scott Kreutter had his helmet packed away when the phone rang. On the other end was car owner Brandan Warner, giving a last-minute shot behind the wheel of the No.21K.
Kreutter seized the chance and turned it into a storied night. With a late-race slidejob and nerves of steel on the final restart, Kreutter hung on over Spencer Burley to claim his first career CRSA victory in the DisBatch Brewing Company-Stirling Lubricants Miniseries, pocketing $2500 and inscribing his name into the history books.
“It feels good,” said Kreutter. “I’ve been doing a lot of racing with the little guy [Dawson], putting a lot of effort into him. Two weeks ago was my first night back out since last year. Brandan gave me a call last night and asked me if I wanted to run and I’m glad we did.”
A pair of championship situations entered the evening. Going into the feature, Dalton Herrick needed an 18th-place finish or better to secure the major championship advantage. Tyler Graves also needed a podium spot in the DisBatch-Stirling Miniseries to clinch over Darryl Ruggles.
Ruggles and Johnny Scarborough brought the field to green with Graves starting fourth and Herrick starting 18th after spinning in his heat. Ruggles led early over Scarborough and Graves, but Spencer Burley moved to second on lap two.
The following lap, Scarborough spun in turn two, bringing out the first yellow.
On the restart, Burley took the race lead from Ruggles while the latter’s No. 48JR suffered a problem and pulled into the infield as the first car out. Lap four saw the race’s second yellow as CJ Jones rode the wall on two wheels, but did not flip his ride.
Burley stayed out front while Kreutter remained within a second of the No. 15B as a long run began. In heavy lapped traffic, Timmy Lotz, Graves and a hard-charging Dillon Paddock from last closed in, making it a five-car battle for the lead.
The battle ended with a red flag with 11 to go as Cameron Moss violently flipped his No. 25 into the branches, but climbed out uninjured.
Burley held serve over Kreutter in the following restart while Paddock moved up to third before another yellow flew as Kirsten Dombroski and Steve Glover tangled in turn one.
Four laps to go, Kreutter threw in a slide job on Burley to make the race-winning pass and take the lead, but it wasn’t over once the white flag flew.
Paddock did a 360 spin, falling down the leaderboard to bring up the final restart in a green-white-checkered finish.
But Kreutter was able to hold off Burley in the end for his first win to become the 93rd different winner in series history.
“He was definitely better in clean air,” said Kreutter. “The motor just wouldn’t take off and I had to get him going in and was just planning [the slider]. I was really looking forward to lapped traffic. I knew that I could wheel through it and then when we got in clean air, my only opportunity was going to be to throw it.”
“I knew I had enough room; I wasn’t going to put him in a bad situation and he tried crossing back over and we kept the momentum up. Once I had the lead, I ran a slider line so nobody could do that to me.”
The win came at the same track nearly 20 years ago in a Patriot Sprint Tour race in 2008, when Kreutter battled for the win on the final lap but eventually finished third.
With Dalton Herrick maneuvering through the field to finish sixth, he clinched the championship advantage and only needs to show up on one of the two days at Outlaw Speedway Oct. 16-17, where he will be crowned CRSA champion for the second time.
It wasn’t easy from unloading, as mentioned, when he spun out suffering front-end damage in the wreck, but he recovered with the help of many drivers in the field fixing the car to run the feature.
“It’s a never-give-up attitude,” said Herrick. “We couldn’t just throw in the towel. Fortunately, I have a ton of friends in the pits. Shoutout to Timmy [Lotz], Tyler [Graves], even when we’re battling for points, Dalton [Martin]; 10-15 guys were thrashing to fix the car. We wouldn’t have made it out without them. We all want to win it at the track, not in the pits.”
While Tyler Graves fought for the overall championship advantage, Darryl Ruggles’ early issues in the feature clinched Graves the DisBatch Brewing Company-Stirling Lubricants Miniseries championship, the first of his career.
“It helps. Tonight is tough to lose the championship; the miniseries definitely boosts the morale,” said Graves. “We’ve had the speed all year, but crashed too many race cars. The car was a rocket off the trailer and was hanging on for fourth.”
Despite being the dominant car in the feature, Spencer Burley finished second. After battling ignition and driveshaft issues dating back to last week at Land of Legends Raceway, Burley used extra practice to try to remedy the problem—leaving him with a lot of positives, but one spot short.
“It was clean, no doubt about that,” Burley said on Kreutter’s slidejob. “Just struggling a little bit with motor issues, but I tried to make the best of it tonight and my best of it wasn’t good enough.”
Following up his first CRSA win from last week, Timmy Lotz put it back on the podium with a third-place effort. Lotz and his No. 18 crew made some adjustments to the car based on how the track was prepped during intermission.
“Happy to be back on the podium,” said Lotz. “The last two weeks have been pretty good for us. Got to thank Joe, Tara, all my sponsors and everyone that gets me here every week.”
Adam DePuy won the Elab Smokers Boutique Scramble Dash, winning $100 and a cigar courtesy of Elab.
The Powdertech Powdercoating Hard Charger went to Dillon Paddock, picking up 15 spots in the feature to finish eighth.
CRSA concludes its 2026 racing season with a trip to Outlaw Speedway Oct. 16-17 for the $4000-to-win Hoag Memorial in a show-up points event.
A Main (25 Laps): 1. 21K-Scott Kreutter[5]; 2. 15B-Spencer Burley[6]; 3. 18-Timmy Lotz[8]; 4. 25G-Tyler Graves[4]; 5. 10N-Nathan Pierce[10]; 6. 29-Dalton Herrick[18]; 7. 99-Adam Depuy[9]; 8. 21B-Dillon Paddock[23]; 9. 3-Bailey Boyd[20]; 10. 81K-Dalton Martin[12]; 11. 14X-Lance Dusett[7]; 12. 18C-Dan Craun[17]; 13. 61-Johnny Scarborough[1]; 14. X-Dan Bennett[13]; 15. 410-Jerry Sehn Jr[19]; 16. D9-Dustin Sehn[11]; 17. 3V-Zach Virkler[15]; 18. 121-Steve Glover[16]; 19. 30-Kirsten Dombroski[21]; 20. 25-Cameron Moss[3]; 21. 85C-Cam MacKinnon[22]; 22. 22M-CJ Jones[14]; 23. 48JR-Darryl Ruggles[2]
Elab Smokers Boutique Dash (4 Laps): 1. 99-Adam Depuy[1]; 2. 10N-Nathan Pierce[2]; 3. D9-Dustin Sehn[5]; 4. 81K-Dalton Martin[3]; 5. X-Dan Bennett[4]; 6. 22M-CJ Jones[6]
Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 21K-Scott Kreutter[2]; 2. 25-Cameron Moss[4]; 3. 15B-Spencer Burley[5]; 4. D9-Dustin Sehn[3]; 5. 10N-Nathan Pierce[8]; 6. 18C-Dan Craun[6]; 7. 85C-Cam MacKinnon[1]; 8. 30-Kirsten Dombroski[7]
Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 25G-Tyler Graves[1]; 2. 99-Adam Depuy[2]; 3. 18-Timmy Lotz[6]; 4. X-Dan Bennett[4]; 5. 81K-Dalton Martin[7]; 6. 22M-CJ Jones[8]; 7. 3-Bailey Boyd[3]; 8. 21B-Dillon Paddock[5]
Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 61-Johnny Scarborough[3]; 2. 48JR-Darryl Ruggles[7]; 3. 14X-Lance Dusett[5]; 4. 3V-Zach Virkler[1]; 5. 121-Steve Glover[2]; 6. 29-Dalton Herrick[6]; 7. 410-Jerry Sehn Jr[4]
The CRSA Sprints are brought to you by A-Verdi Storage Containers. Associate sponsors include Pit Stop Convenience Stores, DisBatch Brewing Company, Stirling Lubricants, Dandy, Joe’s Garage, Westward Painting Company, Elab Smokers Boutique, iFreeze Storage & Distribution Center, Maguire Automotive Group, Powdertech Powdercoating, Ruggles World of Auto Body, PJC Business Ventures, Magsarus Ignitions, Hoosier Racing Tire, Bicknell Racing Products, Insinger Performance with their Stinger Race Fuel, My Race Pass and is owned and operated by Mike Emhof Motorsports.
For more information on the series, results and points, please visit our website at www.crsa.myracepass.com.
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