SELINSGROVE, Pa. – A Duke is king of the Pennsylvania Sprint Series.
Third-year RaceSaver driver Kenneth Duke topped points for the IMCA-sanctioned winged tour, with a win and 12 more top five finishes in 25 PASS tour dates.
“It’s a tough series here in Pennsylvania,” noted Duke, from Selinsgrove. “When you get 25-30 cars a night, it’s hard to get a lot of wins.”
He raced go-karts up and down the East Coast before 11 seasons in the micro sprints. The RaceSaver cars caught his eye one night at Clinton County Motor Speedway.
“We decided we wanted to give them a try but could never afford it until we started watching the 305s at Clinton County,” Duke said. “It was kind of surprising at first with the difference in horsepower. I really think the key was that I started to understand the car, what it needed to go fast and getting seat time on bigger tracks.”
“After running micro sprints on quarter-miles, running on 3/8- and half-mile tracks took a little getting used to,” he added.
Duke had two feature wins and finished second in the 2015 series standings. Duke’s win this year came on June 10 at Clinton County. He was ninth in national IMCA EMI RaceSaver Sprint Car point standings.
“I still can’t believe I won the series championship, to tell the truth,” Duke admits. “Sometimes I go to the series website and make sure it really happened.”
Starts: 25
Wins: 1
Additional Top Fives: 12
HIS CREW: Father Kenneth Sr., Brian Snyder and Darrell Troxel.
HIS SPONSORS: Fairfield Chevrolet of Lewisburg; Werner Fuels of Sunbury; Apache Tree Service, Tom Tice Powder Coating and Dynamic Wings and Subs, all of Middleburg; and R.W. Maust Garage and Fred Keller, both of Selinsgrove.