BUTLER TOWNSHIP, Pa. — He’s best known as “Boy Wonder” and for good reason. Paulie Hartwig III never ceases to amaze in what he continues to do with a Modified stock car and on Sunday afternoon he added another feather in his cap as the 15-year-old took top honors in the Tour Type Modified feature at Evergreen Raceway’s Opening Day.
Hartwig started the 35-lap main in fifth spot and wasted little time in slotting his way to third behind Austin Beers and leader Kyle Sisco. He then moved to second by virtue of a lap-1 restart and then stay glued to the tail of Sisco’s No. 31.
Keeping the pressure on he was able to work to the inside of Sisco as they ran side-by-side on lap seven. His race winning move would then take place by holding a solid line entering Turn 1 and from the outset of lap eight and through to the finish it would become a race for second as Hartwig was much too strong for the rest of the pack.
“Right after we built this car it was good out of the box when we took it to New Smyrna back in February and all the thanks goes out to Jerry Gradl who did so much for us. We love coming here for the fans and I always like running at this track and it’s always pretty cool to win here at Evergreen,” said Hartwig.
A redraw of the top six from the heats saw Sisco, who was driving for Steve Ferrara, and James Pritchard Jr., sharing the front row and once the action got underway Sisco took command over Austin Beers, Hartwig, Pritchard and Brian DeFebo.
At the completion of the first tour the caution waved when Evan Rygielski spun in Turn 3. With the race being a “choose” for the restart Beers opted to go low and gave up second spot to Hartwig.
Once the action resumed Sisco would have his hands full as Hartwig kept him in his clutches. The ongoing hounding would pay off for Hartwig when he was able to move to the bottom of the track in order to set-up his plan of attack.
“I saw (Austin) Beers choose the bottom, (for the restart) so I went right to the top and then we got down to the bottom and got a whole and a run on Kyle (Sisco) and that was that,” said Hartwig.
“The car was getting a little free towards the end and if we would have had a caution I think Austin and even Matt (Hirschman) may have had something for us.”
As Hartwig was cruising there was some very close racing taking place between Sisco and Beers as they ran continuously nose-to-tail. Then 10 laps to go Matt Hirschman joined the fight and the trio remained locked in that order to the checkers.
Gordie Buchman won the street stock feature and Don Bettly topped the crate modified main event. Jared Frye aced the four-cylinder class and Riley O’Keefe bested the Legend cars.
