Trending
PORT ROYAL -- Brent Marks dominated the Greg Hodnett Classic Saturday night at Port Royal Speedway.
For Marks, of Myerstown, it was his 17th career Port Royal win, and
second of the season with the High Limit Racing Series. The race was
originally scheduled for Pennsylvania Speedweek on July 4, but was
postponed by rain.
Marks had a near-perfect night earning $15,000 after leading all 25
feature laps.
"The car was awesome all night tonight," Marks said. "The track got
around the bottom and that's not my strong suite around here. I'm
really proud of this whole team. It's awesome to get this win tonight
in honor of Greg Hodnett, and get back in victory lane at Port Royal.
I love winning here."
Despite his dominating run, track conditions made the feature a bit
tricky for Marks.
"I wanted to make the top work more, especially when I got to lapped traffic but it was too dirty, and the car slid up into the wall,"
Marks said. "Luckily, there was a big enough cushion to save me. I
was trying to make it work, but decided I had to live or die by the
bottom and middle. Our car was rolling. It was really good. I love
what we've got going on here."
Marks started on the pole, and King's Royal winner Anthony Marci
started second in the High Limit Sprint Car Series feature.
Marks wasted no time grabbing the lead, and had a 3-second lead when he started lapping slower cars only six laps into the race.
Macri cut the lead down to under one second with 10 laps to go and continued to close as Marks searched for a faster lie.
He was under Marks in turns three and four and they raced side-by-side down the frontstretch. Marks maintained the lead into turn one and that's as close as Macri would get.
Marks controlled two late-race restarts. Justin Peck passed Marci for
second following a lap 23 restart.
"We were fast from start to finish tonight," Peck said. "I want to win
so badly. I know a win is coming. I haven't felt this good at Port
Royal since 2021. We'll try to get a little bit better for tomorrow."
Chase Dietz crossed the line third, but was penalized two spots for
being out of line on the final restart with two laps left This moved
Marci up to the final podium spot.
"We had a good car, I need to do better under yellows with my tires," Macri said. "We're not good on restarts right now. The car doesn't want to fire-off. We got to Brent in lapped traffic, and I felt like we had something for him, if stuff went different ways, but that's
racing."
Ryan Smith finished fourth, and Dietz completed the top five.
Logan Wagner charged from 22nd starting spot to finish sixth. Rico
Abreu, Aaron Reutzel, Tyler Courtney and Kerry Madson rounded out the top 10.
Peck has the fastest lap in qualifying time trials at 15.862. Abreu
was quickest in Group B with a lap of 16.652.
Madsen, Macri, Marks and Daison Pursley won the heat races. Dominic Melair won the C-main, Marks the dash and Cam Smith the B-main.
Port Royal was back in action Sunday night with the Bob Weikert
Memorial paying $100,000 to win for the High Limit Sprint Car Series. Those results were too late for this edition and will be in a future edition.