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Redemption for Danner with Selinsgrove Victory

Selinsgrove, PA. June 17th, 2020. Nick Fillman, USAC ECSC.

Briggs Danner of Allentown, PA scored his series leading fourth victory of the season at the Selinsgrove Speedway, and conquered the northeastern PA oval for the first time following a dominant performance in May, and coming up just short.

Young drivers Joey Amantea and Christian Bruno lead the field to green for the twenty lap feature event, in the second part of a double header program alongside the USAC National Sprint Car Series.

Amantea lead the field into corners one and two with Danner making a needle threading move from his fourth place starting spot into the runner up position behind Amantea down the back stretch on lap one, before the first red flag of the night would appear as Brody Adamsky went for a wild flip into turn three.

The ensuing restart put the field into their original starting spots, negating Danner’s quick moves into the runner up position. The second start again saw Amantea motor out to the lead, but this time Christian Bruno was wiser to the quick moves of Danner and held onto the runner up spot with Danner into third. As the field worked their way to the competition of lap one, Amantea was the leader with, Danner in second, and Bruno in third, with all three in a tight formation with no clear run away for any position.

Amantea, Danner, and Bruno battled hard for the opening laps of the feature event with Amantea running the higher line of the speedway, and Danner utilizing the bottom lane of the speedway. As the front three would try to decide the podium among themselves, Alex Bright was pounding the high side of the Selinsgrove Speedway peddling hard to try and catch the front trio.

The second red flag of the feature event flew on lap three, as Steven Drevicki unfortunately caught the wall in the middle of turns three and four, and sent him for a violent series of barrel rolls through the corner. Thankfully no other drivers made contact with Drevicki, and he was able to walk away from the gnarly flip under his own power.

As the field went to restart Amantea was the leader followed tightly by Briggs Danner with Bruno, Bright, and Nash Ely rounding out the top five. Amantea held onto the lead for the first lap of the restart before Briggs Danner would move by for the lead entering turn one on lap four. Amantea tried to fight back on the outside of the speedway, but could not quite get back to the tail tank of race leader Briggs Danner. Alex Bright continued to utilize the high line of the speedway getting around Bruno and Amantea, with Bruno moving by Amantea into third as the battle for positions two through four remained intense.
At the halfway point of the feature event Danner was the leader with Bright continuing to pound the high side of the speedway in second, with Danner, Amantea, and a highly contested battle for fifth between Nash Ely and Ed Aikin.

While Danner was mostly utilizing the bottom side of the speedway, and slowly venturing up the banking higher and higher as Bright continued to draw ever closer to the tail of the Gallagher entry out front. Around lap fourteen, Bright was within two car lengths of Danner, with Danner also moving to the high side of the speedway trying to take the lane away from Bright. Bright would continue to draw in closer for the lead, nearly on the tail of Danner as the field entered turn one on lap sixteen. Unfortunately for Bright, he would jump the cushion and tag the wall allowing Danner to get away.

Briggs Danner would have smooth sailing and not contention for the top spot for the final three laps of the feature event and go on to collect his fourth feature event victory of the 2021 Rapid Tire, USAC East Coast Sprint Car Series, Presented by Capitol Renegade season. Bright remained in second, with Bruno scoring a podium run in third, with Amantea and Ed Aikin winning out the battle for fifth over Nash Ely.

Briggs Danner nabbed his fourth victory of the season and flipped the script on Bright at Selinsgrove as Bright was the one scoring the victory in the series first trip to the speedway in May. Danner explained that while the win in the East Coast feature was great, he felt like he had potentially let his fist career USAC National Win get away in their feature. Danner was in third contending for the victory before heavy contact with the outside wall, and a flat right rear tire would end his shot at his first career USAC National victory. Danner will have two more shots at victory in Pennsylvania this week, and the team has expressed interest in hopefully heading to the Kokomo Smackdown in August.

Alex Bright along with Danner competed in both feature events on Thursday at Selinsgrove. Bright wound up sixth in the USAC National Sprint feature and another solid run in second with the East Coast Series. Bright holds onto a slim points lead over Danner for the season long championship by only three points, and the intensity for the season title is only just beginning.

Young Christian Bruno has not been full-time with the series so far in 2021, but the talented driver has been extremely impressive in his last two outings scoring a fourth at Lincoln, and now a third place finish at the difficult Selinsgrove Speedway. Bruno and the Fauci Racing team will continue to run select events with the series through the reminder of the season. Bruno has found a new level of speed and confidence and will look to continue his improvements as the season goes on.

Joey Amantea scored his second highest feature finish on Thursday at Selinsgrove, backing up the speed that the team had debuted with at the Bridgeport Speedway in April. Amantea and team utilized their primary black car for the first time since the Port Royal Speedway in April where it received heavy damage. Amantea had speed all night finishing fourth in the heat race event, earning himself a spot in the redraw for the feature and starting on the pole. Amantea held his own with Danner for the opening handful of laps of the feature event before falling back to fourth. Look for Amantea and team to build upon their strong run on Thursday and try too consistently be a top five entry.

Rounding out the top five was Ed Aikin, who in all respect to the veteran driver, was the oldest of our top five. Ed has been extremely consistent this season since joining the USAC East Coast ranks consistently running inside the top ten, and over the last handful of events nearing, and cracking the top five. Aikin and Nash Ely waged an entertaining battle all race long for the fifth spot with Aikin ultimately coming-out on top of the battle. Ed Aikin also earned his third Vahlco Wheels Hard Charger award, finishing fifth from his twelfth place starting spot.

The series will take a week off from action next week, before returning the first week of July with four races in seven days as a part of the second ever “Mini Speedweek.” The events start on Thursday July 1st, at the Orange County Fair Speedway before moving to Big Diamond July 2nd, the New Egypt Speedway for their only appearance on July 3rd. A three day break will occur, before speedweek wraps up on July 7th at the Action Track USA Speedway for the first ever appearance of the series in the “Iron Cowboy Classic.”

As always, follow along with the series on social media for the latest news, results, photos, and updates! On Facebook at: USAC East Coast Sprint Cars, and on Twitter at: @USACecsc.

USAC East Coast at Selinsgrove Speedway Results:

Heat 1 (8 Laps, Four Redraw): 1. 5G Briggs Danner, 2. 19 Steven Drevicki, 3. 17m Christian Bruno, 4. 88J Joey Amantea, 5. 21k Tommy Kunsman, 6. 7 Ed Aikin, 7. 33w Michael Walter, 8. 12w Troy Fraker, 9. 67 Jason Cherry.

Heat 2 (8 Laps, Four Redraw): 1. 20 Alex Bright, 2. 3bc Nash Ely, 3. 17J Jonathan Swanson, 4. 11 Mike Thompson, 5. 57 Damon Paul, 6. 117 David Swanson, 7. 19a Brody Adamsky, 8. 07w Colby Womer, 9. 3H Heidi Hedin.

Feature (20 laps): 1. 5G Briggs Danner, 2. 20 Alex Bright, 3. 17m Christian Bruno, 4. 88J Joey Amantea, 5. 7 Ed Aikin, 6. 3bc Nash Ely, 7. 17J Jonathan Swanson, 8. 117 David Swanson, 9. 33w Michael Walter, 10. 57 Damon Paul, 11. 21K Tommy Kunsman, 12. 11 Mike Thompson, 13. 07 Colby Womer, 14. 67 Jason Cherry, 15. 12w Troy Fraker, 16. 19 Steven Drevicki, 17. 3H Heidi Hedin, 18. 19a Brody Adamsky.

Lap Leaders: Joey Amantea (1-4), Briggs Danner (5-20).

Penske Shocks 1st Place: Briggs Danner
Penske Shocks 2nd Place: Alex Bright
Penske Shocks 3rd Place: Christian Bruno
Ultra Shield 3rd Place: Christian Bruno
Ultra Shield 6th Place: Nash Ely
Vahlco Hard Charger: Ed Aikin

Rapid Tire, USAC East Coast, Presented by Capitol Renegade Points: