PORT ROYAL, Pa. — There was a stout field of 31 410 sprint cars signed in for competition on Saturday night, and a new driver parked in Kish Bank victory lane.
Jonathan Preston led all 25 laps to claim his first victory, not only at Port Royal Speedway, but in his career behind the wheel of a 410 sprint car.
Preston would line up alongside Mike Thompson to make up the front row of the 25 lap A-main event.
The first attempt at a start would be a struggle for Preston as he would bobble the car off the fourth corner and drop multiple positions.
To Preston’s favor however, an accident in turn four involving Garrett Bard and Zack Newlin, before the completion of the first lap, would reset the field.
Following another caution on the restart due to a false start by Preston, the third take at starting the feature would see Preston take the early lead.
The driver from Geneva, New York would grow his lead to as much as 2.5 seconds during the A-main event, only to see it dwindle to 0.500 seconds with just six laps remaining.
Steve Buckwalter, who rolled off from the sixth starting spot, would close in on Preston in the waning laps of the race.
A damaged front nose wing, however, hindered Buckwalter’s charge to the front as the handling became a struggle for the second-place driver.
A caution with just 2 laps to go from Austin Bishop spinning on the backstretch would restack the field behind Preston and give Buckwalter and company one last shot to steal the win away from the leader.
Preston would get a solid restart and build his lead to over 1.4 seconds in the final two laps to hold on for the win.
Jeff Halligan and Brock Zearfoss would both make last corner passes on Buckwalter to steal away the final two podium spots in that order.
Timmy Bitner won the 305 sprint car feature, while Lane Snook topped the limited late model main event.
The finish:
Feature (25 laps): 1. 22P-Jonathan Preston[1]; 2. 45-Jeff Halligan[8]; 3. 8-Brock Zearfoss[10]; 4. 17B-Steve Buckwalter[6]; 5. 99-Devin Adams[4]; 6. 67-Justin Whittall[12]; 7. 55-Logan Wagner[11]; 8. 11T-Mike Thompson[2]; 9. 12J-Derek Hauck[16]; 10. 22-Doug Hammaker[3]; 11. 33-Gerard McIntyre Jr[7]; 12. 77-Mike Walter[9]; 13. 22E-Nash Ely[24]; 14. 55M-Domenic Melair[14]; 15. (DNF) 12-Blane Heimbach[23]; 16. (DNF) 5K-Jake Karklin[21]; 17. (DNF) 35-Austin Bishop[5]; 18. (DNF) 77K-Derek Locke[17]; 19. (DNF) 69X-Kassidy Kreitz[19]; 20. (DNF) 66-Ryan Newton[15]; 21. (DNF) 47K-Kody Lehman[18]; 22. (DNF) 11Z-Zach Newlin[20]; 23. (DNF) 24B-Dustin Baney[13]; 24. (DNF) 95-Garrett Bard[22]
