What an action packed night at "THE HILL" last night! Beautiful weather had the place packed! We started out the night with a visit to Jason Hamilton. Jason is a "Cowpatty" fan and was kind enough to grace his Hot Rod with a fresh off the press "Cowpatty Nation" sticker! Bob Yurko (as mentioned in the below post) was nothing less than awesome in helping us outas we chatted with him pitside!
The track conditions were on the rough side in the early going with alot of rubber put down through the mid to lower sections of the track. Kenny had the grader out and created a much better racing surface come feature time with multiple grooves. Us fans took a pretty good dirt bath thru-out the evening with no complaints from me due to the awesome racing! I mentioned to Eric that Kevin Hirthler could wire the field before the feature started. Little did I know? What a fantastic feature it was with Kevin taking control and leading many laps! As the race progressed Jeff Strunk in his "Red Rocket" and the "Duane Train" Howard moved into contention. Strunk took over the lead later in the race getting by Hirthler. We all thought "Night-Night get the light" this thing is over with Jeff picking up his 1st win at Grandview for the Gagliardo family! Not so said Hirthler. Kevin throttled the potent 117 Bicknell past Jeff on a lap 9 restart and took command and held it running the cushion (which by this time was all the way up against the boiler-plate!!) Jeff & Duane were hawking Kevin but never able to take command! Congrats Kevin on your win! Kevin was torqued in victory lane climbing atop his 117's roof in celebration!
Great runs by Strunk & Howard to finish 2 & 3rd. CVD went pitside early and and returned to finish a fine 5th place! Sean Merkel picked up the "Hard Charger award coming from 29th to 12th! Randy Stoudt looked stout taking the Late Model feature convincingly. Tough nights for both previous champions Chuck Schutz and Brian Shuey! Missing was Greg Hoffmaster, oh and Scott we've got your "CPN" shirt for ya!
We traveled pitside after the features. Missed chatting with "Erwinna Extreme" on his night and the CVD compound as always was packed with fans! Traveled down to see the Gagaliardo/Strunk crew to pleasantly surprised by running into good friend and Cowpatty follower Steve Bucks who is a big Vince fan and frequents the shop weekly! Steve was nice enough to introduce me to Vince Sr and a few other members! Vince is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet and told me it is now "FUN" for him at the race track! If anyone is deserving of the racing gods looking over him...its Vince! Thanks for the good stories and getting a chance to talk to you last night! Good Luck to everyone on your team this season and the 1st win at Grandview is right around the corner!
We also journeyed down to visit the Erb family and what a pleasure that was!! Janet Erb (Danny's Mom) was incredibly nice! She had some excellent stories and goings on with racing in general and Danny that were good to hear! Danny had one rough night getting tore up in his heat race. The cars whole rear end was torn up and unable to return to racing for the evening. We met Danny a couple years back up at Rolling Wheels during Super Dirt week along with Kyle Weiss. Danny is one of the nicest guys around and we wish him luck getting his Banos brothers 44 back on the track next week sporting a "Cowpatty Nation sticker on that Lombardo powered hot rod! All and all an excellent night on "The Hill"!
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