PORT ROYAL, Pa. – Even with a newly-built machine, Anthony Macri looked as comfortable as ever Saturday at Port Royal Speedway, powering to one of his finest wins of the season in the $10,000-to-win Living Legends Dream race.
Macri led the final 12 of 30 laps and raced to a 1.855-second victory over reigning two-time track champion Logan Wagner. It’s Macri’s fifth overall win at Port Royal Speedway in a 410 sprint car and first since he won the first Pennsylvania Speedweek show at the track on July 1.
“It feels good to finally get a win,” Macri said. “The past two weeks have been complete [garbage]. Destroyed a car out at Knoxville and junked some more stuff last night. This $10,000 check helps pay some bills.”
The Living Legends Dream race that was postponed from Aug. 1 because of rain was one of five features Saturday night at Port Royal and one of two makeup 410 features. The track ran three 410 features in total on Saturday.
Last week, Macri wrecked out of the C-Main in The Only and Only at Knoxville Raceway sanctioned by the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series. Leading into Saturday, Macri and crew compiled every note stashed along the way and put together a new piece for this final leg of races.
From the onset it became evident this machine would make winning gains, as Macri moved into third from sixth before the race grew four laps old. On lap 10, Macri motored around eventual third-place finisher Lance Dewease along the fence and started to run down Wagner.
A one-second deficit with 17 laps to go became mere car lengths two laps later as Wagner battled traffic on the slick racing surface. While both Wagner and Macri utilized the top in turns one and two, Macri decided to roll the bottom on the other end and that’s when, on lap 18, he overtook Wagner for good on the low side off turn four.
“I think we definitely found something,” Macri said. “Normally I’m not a fan of new cars but I’d say I’m a pretty big fan of this one.”
Brent Marks finished fourth and Brock Zearfoss settled for fifth. T.J. Stutts finished sixth, while Jeff Halligan earned the hard-charger with his 18th-to-seventh effort. Blane Heimbach finished eighth from 16th. Ryan Taylor and Dylan Cisney rounded out the top 10.
Ryan Smith, making a one-off appearance in Anthony Fiore’s No. 91, placed 15th.
In the second makeup feature, Wagner controlled the action from the start and led all 20 laps for his first victory of the season.
Wagner started on the pole and scored a .850-second victory over charging Cisney.
Wagner built a two-second lead in the early stages and held onto it with five laps to, but by the time he battled heavy lapped traffic, Cisney began a late surge.
Without a lapped car betweem them, the comfy advantage shrunk to 1.3 seconds with three laps to go and then became just a second one lap later. But Cisney never got within striking distance as the two-time reigning track champ secured his awaited first checkered flag of 2020.
Mike Wagner, Lucas Wolfe and Blane Heimbach rounded out the top five.
Finally, in the regularly scheduled feature, Heimbach led the final seven laps and rolled to his first victory of the season.
Heimbach registered a 1.728 victory over Logan Wagner, who made a late run from the eighth starting position.
After starting third, Heimbach made his way to second five laps in and began to cut into pole-sitter Taylor’s three-second lead. Heimbach shaved the deficit to 2.2 seconds at the halfway point and then pulled to within 1.1 seconds shortly after.
Then, with seven laps to go, Heimbach skirted around the bottom, underneath Taylor, for the race lead as they rounded the back stretch.
Taylor, who led the opening 13 laps, finished third. Cisney and Wolfe filed out the top five.