Rick’s Racing Roundup: Sodeman Jr., Gunn Score Wins at Thunder Mountain

| July 24, 2018


This past Friday, the 410 sprint cars returned to Thunder Mountain Speedway for their annual visit and they returned in record numbers.

(Photo: Jack Sodeman Jr was the big winner at Thunder Mountain winning the annual 410 sprint car special. Photo by Rick Rarer)

A whopping 34 sprinters filled this pits Friday for the $3,000 top prize. When the dust settled it was a pair of Ohio drivers that took home the most loot as Jack Sodeman Jr. of Lordstown, Ohio, passed fellow Ohio native Trey Jacobs for the win. Jacobs held on for second over Apollo’s Sye Lynch. Jeremy Kornbau won the non-qualifiers feature.

A full field of late models was also on hand which saw Jake Gunn of Pittsburgh score his first Thunder Mountain win over Lernerville invader Colton Flinner. Duke Davidson won the stock car feature and DJ Clark visited victory lane in the four-cylinder feature.

 Jake Gunn scored his first late model win of the season at Thunder Mountain this past Friday. Photo by Rick Rarer

Jake Gunn scored his first late model win of the season at Thunder Mountain this past Friday. Photo by Rick Rarer

This Friday the RUSH wingless sprint cars will make their first-ever visit to the Brookville oval. The sprints will be joined by the track’s four-regular divisions making for a five-division program.

Rex King Jr. had a successful weekend, as the Ohio driver swept both Mod Tour races with wins at Lernerville Speedway on Friday then again at Sharon Speedway on Saturday. For King, both wins were worth $2,000 making the weekend sweep worth $4,000.

Both Lernerville and Sharon will be back in action this weekend.

At Lernerville Fab 4 racing will return and it will also be Nostalgia night and Meet the Drivers night. This Saturday at Sharon Speedway the big block modifieds will be in action again along with the Penn-Ohio Stock Car Series.

Despite rain all around the area Saturday evening, Hummingbird Speedway was able to dodge Mother Nature for a while and almost completed their racing program. All heat races were completed and the first feature hit the track. Nick Erskine of Bells Landing took home the win in the semi-late feature. Next up Dave Shagla of Sugar Grove won the street stock feature just before the rains came ending the night’s action. The remaining featured will be run this Saturday before the start of regular racing action making for an action-packed night with racing slated for 7 p.m.

Tony Stewart’s All-Star Circuit of Champions visited northwest Pennsylvania over the weekend for the final time in 2018 and dodged raindrops both Friday and Saturday night. Despite the rain Texas racer Aaron Reutzel would not be denied as he swept the weekend winning at both Eriez Speedway and Pittsburgh Motor Speedway recording his sixth and seventh All-Star victories of the year. Reutzel has the most wins on the tour this season and the sweep put him just two points out of the point lead behind leader Carson Macedo of California.

New York racer Chad Ruhlman had another dominating weekend in his RUSH wingless sprint car. Since switching to the new division of sprint cars, Ruhlman has been almost unstoppable every time he unloads. This weekend he scored wins at Eriez Speedway and Pittsburgh Motor Speedway in what was the first appearance ever by the new series at both tracks. The wins brought Ruhlman’s win total for the season up to an impressive eight.

Zach Morrow of Mars scored his first career RUSH sprint car win this past Wednesday at Lernerville Speedway. The win was the first sprint car win of any kind for Morrow and made him the fourth different driver to win a RUSH sprint car feature. Morrow joins eight-time winner Ruhlman, current point leader Gale Ruth Jr., and two-time winner Arnie Kent on the winner’s list.

With the late models having the weekend off at Lernerville, defending track champion and current point leader Michael Norris took the opportunity to travel north. Norris, who has dominated Lernerville this season, made his way to Stateline Speedway on the New York border for their 62nd-anniversary race. Norris stunned the crowd when he grabbed the lead on lap 53 of 62 and went on to win the feature against a strong field of competitors. Wyatt Scott, Chub Frank, Max Blair, and Boom Briggs rounded out the top five in the $6,200-to-win affair.

Rick’s Racing Roundup is brought to you by:

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About Rick

Rick Rarer, a Franklin resident, is the owner of Racestud.com and SprintCarNews.com. He has been covering racing for 18 years, taking racing photos for 13 years, and has covered races at over 100 tracks in 15 states. Most recently, Rick won the Bill Steinbach Media Award at the Lernerville Speedway Annual Awards Banquet.


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