HEFFNER FOLLOWS SIGNS TO VICTORY LANE AT THE VALLEY
August 14, 2004
West Lebanon, NY - JR Heffner brought home the victory in the 30-lap modified feature at Lebanon Valley Speedway on Saturday night. It was the first win of the season for Heffner in the A. Calarusso #74. Kory Sandstedt won the 20-lap sportsman feature for the first time in his career. Buddy Hencke won the 20-lap pro stock feature for the fourth time this season. The rookie pro feature was won by Steve Hankle. Chrissy Hilt, Jason LaMountain, Pete DeFiglio and Jessie Murphy won the pure stock features. Saxton Sign sponsored the night of racing.
JR Heffner took the lead of the 30-lap modified feature on a lap one restart and never looked back. He was able to open up a tremendous advantage over the rest of the field throughout the race. The race took a very scary turn on a lap five restart. Ken Tremont Jr was racing hard and was in a three-wide battle for position when disaster struck. He was on the inside and contact was made sending Tremont airborne and flipping upside down. When rescue crews arrived on the scene Tremont was unconscious, but quickly came around. He was extricated from the car and transported to Albany Medical Center. As of press time it was announced that Tremont did not have any broken bones, but further testing was being done to see if there were any other problems. When racing resumed Heffner was still in front with Steve Hough, Denny Soltis, Dave Leckonby and Ron Dwyer rounding out the top five.
Brett Hearn moved into third on lap eight. A huge wreck on lap ten forced speedway officials to start the next restart single file. Rich Ricci Jr and Andy Bachetti moved into the top five on lap eleven. Leckonby had moved up to second by halfway and had to hold off the challenges of Hearn. Hearn was able to finally make the pass for second on lap 23, but with no caution flags it was too late to mount a challenge on Heffner. The best race on the track in the final stages was between Leckonby, Bachetti and Ricci for third position. Heffner crossed the finish line almost a full straightaway ahead of Hearn. Bachetti won the battle for third with Leckonby fourth and Ricci fifth. Heffner was very quick to thank his crew for all their hard work and apologized for taking so long in the season to get to victory lane. Heffner also sent out his prayers to the Ken Tremont and his family saying that there were not any nicer people in racing
The modified drivers competed in the Family Feud on Saturday night. Hearn and Bachetti were the team captains and five head to head races were run between different drivers. Hearn’s team won three races to two and each driver received two hundred dollars.
Kory Sandstedt put his Darcy Construction #12 into the lead on the second lap of the sportsman main event and held it the rest of the way. That is not to say he cruised easily to victory lane. He had to endure five restarts in the first half of the race to maintain the lead. He also had to hold off a serious challenge from Art Collins for the last five laps of the race to record his first career victory in the sportsman division. Kory’s older brother, Brian, won his first sportsman victory this season as well. Kory contributes his success to his new PMC chassis and the hard work that his brother puts into the team. Collins did finish second, Lorne Browe was third, Jeff Watson fourth and Kyle Hoffman rounded out the top five.
Buddy Hencke took the lead from Phil Arnold on lap eight of the 20-lap pro stock feature. Hencke easily cruised home to his fourth victory of the season in the Saxton Sign #10 car. Only two caution periods slowed the event. Arnold hung on for a second place finish with Jim Langenback third and Jay Corbin fourth. Rob Yetman had problems with his power steering in the heat race, but recovered nicely to finish fifth.
08-14 SAXTON SIGN CORPORATION
MODIFIED RESULTS (30 LAPS) - 1 J.R. Heffner, 2 Brett Hearn, 3 Andy Bachetti, 4 Dave Leckonby, 5 Rich Ricci Jr, 6 Wayne Jelley, 7 Denny Soltis, 8 Eddie Marshall, 9 Hector Stratton, 10 Brian Berger, 11 Steve Hough, 12 Ron Dwyer, 13 Guy Sheldon, 14 John Hewitt, 15 Stanley Wetmore, 16 John Alberti, 17 Wayne Figler, 18 Kyle Sheldon, 19 Dave McFeeters, 20 Mike King, 21 Wes Powell, 22 Rob Pitcher, 23 Mel Schruffer, 24 Charlie Humes, 25 Kenny Tremont Jr, 26 Donnie Corellis, 27 Matt Quinn
SPORTSMAN RESULTS (20 LAPS) - 1 Kory Sandstedt, 2 Art Collins, 3 Lorne Browe, 4 Jeff Watson, 5 Kyle Hoffman, 6 K.C. Goewey, 7 Ed Harkin, 8 Frank Harper, 9 Bobby Knipe, 10 Ryan Larkin, 11 Roy Bridge,12 Jason Tompkins, 13 Alan Hotaling, 14 Walt McKay, 15 Chris Kokosa, 16 Poover Daley, 17 Donnie Ackner, 18 Carmon Carnibucci, 19 Brian Sandstedt, 20 Chad Pierce, 21 Kim LaVoy, 22 J.R. Delvechio, 23 Greg DeCamp, 24 Mike Molloy
PRO STOCK RESULTS (20 LAPS) - 1 Buddy Hencke, 2 Kevin Arnold, 3 Jim Langenback, 4 Jay Corbin, 5 Rob Yetman, 6 Jay Casey, 7 Chris Crews, 8 Tom Brandt, 9 Paul LaRochelle, 10 Rick Fosby, 11 Jeff Kelmel, 12 Jim Fachini, 13 Scott Govertsen, 14 Lou Gancarz, 15 Robbie Speed,16 Danny Sanchez
ROOKIE RESULTS (10 LAPS) - 1 Steve Hankle, 2 Ronnie Jacobsen, 3 Larry Megan, 4 Jim Cronk, 5 Ralph Hotchkiss, 6 E.J. Legeyt, 7 John Santolin, 8 Jery Helms, 9 Brian Keough, 10 Jim Keough, 11 Jerry Wright, 12 Jeff Haas, 13 Rick Dempsey, 14 Bill Hammell, 15 Pete Everett
PURE STOCK #1 RESULTS (8 LAPS) - 1 Chrissy Hilt, 2 Shannon McDermott, 3 Ed Hatch, 4 Don Kennedy, 5 Richard Puff, 6 Chris Streeter, 7 Scott Kilmer, 8 Don Coon, 9 Joe Chenail, 10 Joe Walcott, 11 Todd Pelkey, 12 Ron Roger, 13 Dave Stickles, 14 John Quigley
PURE STOCK #2 RESULTS (8 LAPS) - 1 Jay LaMountain, 2 Brian Houghtaling, 3 Kevin Hilt, 4 Paul Harding, 5 Sparky King, 6 Matt Choppy, 7 Zack Jackson, 8 Don Collins, 9 Rich Douglass, 10 Glenn Miller, 11 Robert Hammell, 12 Dave Houser, 13 Dave Striebel
PURE STOCK #3 RESULTS (8 LAPS) - 1 Pete DeFiglio, 2 Nick Hilt Jr, 3 Pete Wiegand, 4 Mike Eichstedt, 5 Bob Palmer, 6 Tom Harkins, 7 Tom Murphy, 8 Tom Murphy Sr, 9 Al Relyea, 10 Jon Routhier, 11 Karl Castagna, 12 Matt Humes, 13 Eric Ofiesh, 14 Jason Casey
PURE STOCK #4 RESULTS (8 LAPS) - 1 Jesse Murphy, 2 Larry Ball, 3 Jason Casey, 4 Ryan Coon, 5 Anthony Maddalla, 6 Poncho Hankey, 7 Jay Kreutziger Jr, 8 Mike Grehl Jr, 9 John Chapman, 10 Jethro Rossman, 11 JoAnn Stevens, 12 Jeff Wilbur, 13 Tony Marino