Bloomsburg, PA. April 14th, 2022. Nick Fillman, USAC ECSC.
Following persistent afternoon rain, wind, and cool temperatures the Rapid Tire, USAC East Coast Sprint Car Series, Presented by Capitol Renegade completed our second event of the 2022 racing season, with a bit of a twist as the series completed twin fifteen lap feature events.
With the early season date of the show, Thursday schedule, and uncertain weather, 10 USAC East Coast sprint car series teams entered the pit area at the Bloomsburg Fair Raceway. With the low car count, series officials, and track promoted Steve O’Neal made the decision to run one heat race, with the finish determining the starting line up for the first 15 lap feature event. After the completion, a pill would be pulled with an inversion of four or six for the second event.
Mike Thompson took the victory in the lone heat race of the night with Briggs Danner hot on his heels as the two took the checkered flag. Both were scheduled to start on the front row of feature event number one, but unfortunately due to being late to staging both were penalized. This handed the front row over to defending series champion Alex Bright, and Joey Amantea.
As the green flag flew Bright immediately jumped out to the feature event lead with Amantea and Christian Bruno just behind. Briggs Danner, who started the fifteen lap event from the ninth starting spot, was rallying quickly and moved into fourth place lap four. On the same lap, the first caution flag of the feature event would be displayed as Billy Ney slowed with issues in turn number one.
The ensuing restart saw Bright, Bruno, Amantea, Danner and Billy Pauch Jr making his first start aboard the Hogue Racing 39 entry as the top five as the field went back to green flag conditions. With the early night conditions, and low car counts for both divisions, passing was at a premium as the track had not quite widened out. Alex Bright went on to cruise to the Feature one victory over Bruno, Amantea, Danner, and Steven Drevicki.
In the pit area, Bright pulled the inversion pill of six which placed Billy Pauch Jr and Steven Drevicki on the front row of the second fifteen lap feature event. On the initial start, Billy Pauch Jr jumped out to the early race lead, but was heavily hounded by Steven Drevicki on the low side of the speedway. Drevicki worked his way underneath Pauch coming to the completion of lap three as Pauch missed the bottom off of turn number four.
Drevicki found himself cruising out front as the field all fought for the bottom side of the speedway. Briggs Danner who had fallen back a few positions, had rebounded and held steady in fourth as the field took the halfway signal.
Danner began to experiment more than any other driver and with six laps to go in the feature event found that the high side of the speedway was very much to his liking and began to pick off cars one by one and draw in on the tail tank of leader Steven Drevicki.
As the field took the two lap to go signal from starter Warren Alston, Danner worked his way to the outside of Drevicki entering turns three and four, and took the lead away from Drevicki at the line on the white flag lap. Try as he might, the top side was carrying far too much momentum for Drevicki to have anything for the Briggs Danner as he would go on to collect twin feature event number two. Drevicki, Bright, Pauch Jr and Joey Amantea would round out the top five with the overall winner of the night based off of average finish going to Alex Bright.
The series jumps right back into action tonight, Friday, April 15th in a sprint car triple header at the Williams Grove Speedway where Steven Drevicki is the defending and only winner at the speedway with two. Tonights action can be viewed live on the DIRTvision streaming platform.
USAC EC at Bloomsburg Results:
Heat 1 (10 laps, All Transfer): 1. 11 Mike Thompson, 2. 5G Briggs Danner, 3. 20 Alex Bright, 4. 88J Joey Amantea, 5. 39 Billy Pauch Jr, 6. 17B Christian Bruno, 7. 19 Steven Drevicki, 8. 83S Billy Ney, 9. 7B Aidan Borden, 10. 21 Carmen Perigo (DNF).
Feature 1 (15 Laps): 1. 20 Alex Bright, 2. 17B Christian Bruno, 3. 88J Joey Amantea, 4. 5G Briggs Danner, 5. 19 Steven Drevicki, 6. 39 Billy Pauch Jr, 7. 11 Mike Thompson, 8. 7B Aidan Borden, 9. 83S Billy Ney. DNS: 21 Carmen Perigo Jr.
Lap Leaders: 20 Alex Bright (1-15).
Feature 2 (15 Laps): 5G Briggs Danner, 2. 19 Steven Drevicki, 3. 20 Alex Bright, 4. 39 Billy Pauch Jr, 5. 88J Joey Amantea, 6. 11 Mike Thompson, 7. 17B Christian Bruno, 8. 7B Aidan Borden. DNS: 83s Billy Ney, 21 Carmen Perigo Jr.
Lap Leaders: Billy Pauch Jr (1 & 2), Steven Drevicki (3-14), Briggs Danner (15).
UP NEXT:
4/15: Williams Grove Speedway (Mechanicsburg, PA) -DIRTvision
4/22: Bedford Speedway (Bedford, PA) - No PPV
4/23: Port Royal Speedway (Port Royal, PA) - Flo Racing w/All Star Sprints
4/30: Bridgeport Motorsports Park (Swedesboro, NJ) - Flo Racing