Rick’s Racing Roundup: Historic 1000th Feature Event Held at Lernerville Speedway

After a couple of cold and wet weeks, this past weekend finally started to feel like spring, allowing area tracks to get back to racing.

(Pictured above: Jeremiah Shingledecker dominated the modified feature at Tri-City Sunday night. Photo by Rick Rarer.)

After three consecutive rainouts, Lernerville Speedway returned to action this past Friday and completed their second racing program of the 2021 season. It was a historical night for the sprint cars as they completed their 1000th feature event in the track’s long storied history.

Fans were treated to a thrilling finish which found central Pennsylvania invader Jason Shultz holding off defending track champ AJ Flick for his first career Lernerville win. Lernerville will be back in action this Friday with another Fab 4 racing program.

Thunder Mountain Speedway was finally able to get their 2021 season started Friday where they completed their first complete show of the season. Jon Lee dominated the super late model feature winning by over 8 seconds when the checkers flew.

This Friday will be a big one for late model fans and drivers at Thunder Mountain when the Vince Copella Memorial takes center stage. The winner of the race will take home a cool 3,500 dollars. Semi lates, pure stocks, four cylinders, and Super 6 late models will also be on the card this Friday at the Brookville oval.

Defending champion Brad Sweet will lead the World of Outlaws into Sharon Speedway this Saturday. Photo by Rick Rarer.

Big news from Sharon Speedway finds the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series returning to the Hartford, Ohio oval this Saturday for the first time since 2007. The best sprint car drivers in the world will invade the speedway to take on the western Pennsylvania regulars for the 10,000 dollar top prize. This is one of the most anticipated races of the season in western Pennsylvania.

Leading the Outlaw charge will be two-time defending series champion Brad Sweet driving for Kasey Kahne Racing who leads the points again this season and already has nine feature wins to his credit. Carson Macedo, David Gravel, and the always exciting Sheldon Haudenschild are all three-time winners this season that will also be on the hunt.

Ten-time champion Donny Schatz will be on hand still looking for his first win of 2021 and his 300th career World of Outlaws win which has eluded him this season. George Hobaugh who dominated the action this past Saturday for his second career win will look to have a good showing against the Outlaws along with the rest of our local drivers.

Michael’s Mercer Raceway returned to action this past Saturday where JR McGinley of Fairmount City scored his first big-block feature win. Mercer will be off this Saturday before returning to action on Saturday, May 29th with a special 4,000 to win the show for the 410 sprint cars which will serve as a tune-up for Western Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek.

The Seneca Slider Bobby Whitling returned to victory lane Sunday night at Tri-City. Photo by Rick Rarer.

After a week off for Mother’s Day racing also returned to Tri-City Raceway this past weekend. After rough track conditions plagued the recent All-Star show fans and competitors were pleased to see the track in great shape this past Sunday. Familiar faces graced the victory lane led by Jack Sodeman Jr who scored his second sprint car win of the 2021 season.

Polk’s Jeremiah Shingledecker would dominate the 358 modified feature for his first win of the season at the Venango county oval. In the stock car feature, it was the “Seneca Slider” returning to victory lane for the first time this season by holding off the charges of Curt Bish.

Andy Thompson would win the mini stock feature to close out the evening’s action. This Sunday the ULMS late model series will visit Tri-City for a 3,000 to win the event. They will be joined by the 305 Racesaver sprint cars who will run a full program and a makeup feature from 2020.