pennsylvaniasprintseries Archives

Clock ticking down on PASS opener

By Frank Buhrman SELINSGROVE, Pa. (March 24, 2023) – In less than two weeks, the roar of IMCA Sprint Car RaceSaver engines will light up a Pennsylvania race track – Selinsgrove Speedway, to be precise – for the first time in 162 days, since the last motor shut off following the Keystone RaceSaver Challenge in October. It’s time to roll again, and it’s extra-special in 2023 because this is the 25th anniversary season for the nation’s premier grassroots Sprint Car series in the Keystone State. River Valley Builders PA Sprint Series IMCA RaceSaver sprinters will join the limited late models and roadrunner stocks on the big Selinsgrove half-mile on Saturday, April 1, to kick off a 35-race 2023 series that will take the tour to nine different race tracks. Selinsgrove leads the parade with 11 planned stops and Port Royal Speedway follows closely behind with 10 dates. Path Valley Speedway, which ran its first PASS event in 2000, has five races scheduled for this year. Other tracks set to run are Williams Grove Speedway, Bloomsburg [Read More]

PASS celebrates 25th anniversary starting at Racing Xtravaganza

By Frank Buhrman YORK, Pa. (Jan. 30, 2023) – The River Valley Builders Pennsylvania Sprint Series will celebrate 25 years of the best economy Sprint Car racing, beginning with a booth at the annual Racing Xtravaganza show Friday and Saturday, Feb. 3-4 in York. The season’s first race is scheduled for Saturday, April 1, at Selinsgrove Speedway. Thirty-five races are scheduled for the anniversary season, with the possibility of more being added. Once again, the series will be characterized by close racing with youngsters and veterans matching wits and talent in sprint cars powered by RaceSaver rules sealed engines. That national rules package is shared by regional series and tracks throughout the country, with an estimated 700-plus cars competing nationally. IMCA, the nation’s oldest sanctioning body, sanctions the series nationally. Last season, 13 different drivers took the feature checkered flag in PASS races despite a dominating performance by Garrett Bard of Wells Tannery, who won 12 races, tying the best single-season performance in series history. Bard also captured his unprecedented third straight championship. He is [Read More]

Spahr in right place at right time to capitalize at Keystone RaceSaver Challenge

By Frank Buhrman PORT ROYAL, Pa. (Oct. 21, 2022) – Logan Spahr put himself in the right position to take advantage of Kenny Heffner’s misfortune, then kept his car in the right position despite a determined challenge by Garrett Bard, and those moves earned him the Keystone RaceSaver Challenge victory Friday at Port Royal Speedway. Also known as the Blue Collar Classic, the Keystone race ended the 2022 season for the IMCA RaceSaver Pennsylvania Sprint Series and capped a tremendous finish to the season for the former micro-sprint champion. A third-place finish in the season opener at Lincoln Speedway in March showed the team’s potential, but an early summer run of mechanical woes threatened the positive outlook. That all turned around in August, and at the end of that month, Spahr claimed the team’s first victory, at Selinsgrove Speedway, then added another Selinsgrove win four weekends later. After struggling most of the season at Port Royal, there was a fourth-place finish two weeks ago, setting the stage for Friday’s race. Still, it might not have happened [Read More]

Weaver wins sprint to Founder’s Cup

By Frank Buhrman PORT ROYAL, Pa. (Oct. 21, 2022) – Jeff Weaver outdueled fellow front-row starter Reed Thompson for the initial lead and held the advantage for the next 15 laps to win the Founder’s Cup feature for IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Cars Friday at Port Royal Speedway. The event is held as part of the River Valley Builders Pennsylvania Sprint Series Keystone RaceSaver Challenge, giving non-qualifiers for the Keystone race itself a meaningful event, which for most is their last of the season. Weaver, Thompson and several other front-runners provided some hot racing for fans who braved temperatures dipping into the 30s for the night’s final race. D.J. Cassler stoutly challenged Thompson for the runner-up spot, while third- and fourth-finishing Branstin Shue and Jarrett Rosencrance waged a laps-long war for those positions. Thompson mounted challenges following restarts on the first and eighth laps but Weaver was able to hold onto the top spot and score the win. Thompson’s runner-up finish came about 4-1/2 hours after he was inducted into the Pennsylvania RaceSaver Hall of Fame [Read More]

Reed snares Race to Hunting Season PASS win at Selinsgrove

By Frank Buhrman SELINSGROVE, Pa. (Sept. 17, 2022) – Austin Reed captured his second major race of the Pennsylvania Sprint Series season Saturday, leading from start to finish to capture the Pennsylvania Game Commission-sponsored Race to Hunting Season at Selinsgrove Speedway. The win came 2-1/2 months after Reed’s victory in the Nittany 40 at Clinton County Speedway. Those have been the two highest-paying PASS events among the 33 run so far this year. That race had featured a furious battle between Reed and Garrett Bard, but while Selinsgrove was hardly easy, nobody got alongside Reed to attempt a pass, and his final margin of victory over runner-up Josh Spicer of Julian was 1.615 seconds. The moment of uncertainty for Reed’s win came on lap 17, when Doug Dodson hit the wall in turn two, bringing out the race’s only caution and erasing a huge lead. But Reed got a good jump on the restart and the crowd’s attention soon turned to a torrid battle for third place between Logan Spahr and Bard. For several laps they traded slide jobs [Read More]

Selinsgrove hosts Pennsylvania Game Commission “Race To Hunting Season”

SELINSGROVE, Pa. (Sept. 12, 2022) – The Pennsylvania Sprint Series and Selinsgrove Speedway announced Race to Hunting Season, an exciting new event to be held Saturday, Sept. 17, featuring the PASS IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car division. PASS and the speedway have partnered with the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) to present a fun pre-race atmosphere combined with a championship race for the winged open wheel division. The PASS purse, which is expected to be doubled for the event thanks to the support from PGC and a boost from the track, will pay $900 to win and $450 to start. The winner of the 25-lap Race to Hunting Season main event will also receive a one-of-a-kind watch valued at $400 from track championship sponsor Foss Jewelers of Selinsgrove to commemorate the inaugural event and the 25th anniversary of RaceSaver. “PASS teams have given great support to Selinsgrove and put on a lot of exciting races over the past couple of years,” said Speedway General Manager Steve Inch. “We’d like to thank Rod Ort of PASS and Bryan Burhans of the [Read More]

Spahr grabs first IMCA RaceSaver win

By Frank Buhrman & Stephanie Dodson SELINSGROVE, Pa. (Aug. 27, 2022) – After a couple of close-but-not-quite finishes at Selinsgrove Speedway, Logan Spahr was due, and the second-year Pennsylvania Sprint Series driver collected that debt Saturday night by scoring his first IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Car victory Saturday after a torrid duel with veteran Doug Dodson. Spahr took the lead from Tyler Snook on lap three after some side-by-side racing. Then, after a red flag for an incident involving Mike Melair, Austin Reed, and Justin Mills on the front stretch, Spahr lost the lead to Dodson, who had charged from eighth starting. Undaunted, Spahr went after Dodson and the two swapped the lead back and forth until Spahr adjusted his line to take away Dodson’s preferred line. With the race staying green for the last 17 circuits of the 20-lapper, traffic also became a factor, but Spahr handled that situation like a seasoned veteran. His victory margin over Dodson was about 10 car lengths. In victory lane, Spahr said he had not expected a win so [Read More]

Kenawell Makes it a Double Weekend with Hagerstown win

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (June 18, 2022) – Stevie Kenawell stared the weekend winning with the Laurel Highlands Sprint Series at Dog Hollow Speedway and then followed it up at the Annual Dad’s Night Out weekend at Hagerstown Speedway by wiring the feature from pole to checkers. The Hagerstown event has been a highlight since the Laurel Highlands Sprint Series, PASS and Virginia Sprint Series got together at Hagerstown a few years ago for the once a year three series race. Kenawell and Dylan Shatzer paced the feature field to green and Kenawell took off with Shatzer in tow. The whole field was dicing for positions in all grooves behind them. Quickly it became a race for second as Kenawell really had the family-owned sprinter dialed in, just a straight arrow lap after lap as Austin Reed made his way to second with Shatzer still third. Even as racers made huge gains headed toward the front spots, the race lap after lap was Kenawell’s in hand. After a couple re-starts he just stayed in the zone to keep [Read More]

Bloomsburg, Selinsgrove make up weekend racing bill for PASS

By Frank Buhrman BLOOMSBURG, Pa. (May 19, 2022) – The River Valley Builders Pennsylvania Sprint Series gets an early start to the weekend with a rare midweek show at Bloomsburg Fair Speedway, then move to its most-often-visited 2022 track, Selinsgrove Speedway, for more action on Saturday night. Tonight’s (Thursday’s) race will be the second for PASS at the beautiful Bloomsburg track, built last year inside the horse-racing facility that also held auto races through the years. The IMCA RaceSaver cars visited last season for an event co-sanctioned by three regional RaceSaver series and Zack Bealer of the Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series regular Zack Bealer took home the win. PASS is scheduled to appear at Bloomsburg again this year on July 13. Pit gates will open at 4 p.m., with grandstands opening at 5 p.m. and racing scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Saturday’s race will be the second this year for PASS at Selinsgrove; the last time the series was scheduled to race, rain had other ideas. Hometown driver Ken Duke won the year’s first series [Read More]

PASS in ‘Madness’ at Port Royal this Saturday

By Frank Buhrman PORT ROYAL, Pa. (April 5, 2022) – The River Valley Builders Pennsylvania Sprint Series will be part of an open wheel race fan’s dream show this Saturday, April 9 at Port Royal Speedway for Open Wheel Madness. The IMCA RaceSaver Sprint Cars, which will run a 20-lap feature and qualifying events, are sponsored again this year at Port Royal by Penns Valley Meat Market. This will be the first of nine scheduled PASS appearances at the Port in 2022, including a twin-20s program in June and the annual Keystone RaceSaver Challenge in October. Nine of the top 10 drivers in 2021 PASS points are set to run Saturday, including champion Garrett Bard of Wells Tannery, who is the runaway leader in Port Royal wins among active RaceSaver competitors with seven. Eight of the top 10 in points for the division at Port Royal last year should be on hand, including champion Dave Grube II of York Haven, the season’s only two-time winner at the track. Also planning to run is 2021 IMCA RaceSaver [Read More]