Pittman takes finale, Hodnett claims overall title

By Shawn Brouse
For The Daily Item

SELINSGROVE — Oklahoma's Daryn Pittman put on a thrilling performance with Lance Dewease of Fayetteville to claim the Pennsylvania Speedweek Jan Opperman Memorial for 410 sprints at Selinsgrove Speedway Sunday night in the finale of the 20th annual speedweek series worth $5,000.

Pittman started second, alongside Dewease on the front row for the 30-lapper and allowed Dewease to lead only the first lap before taking control of the event with a low side move in the first corner.

Pittman, also the speedweek winner on Friday night at Williams Grove Speedway, appeared to have Dewease handled before the red flag waved with 11 laps completed for Blane Heimbach, who was running third.

Heimbach's racer broke and caught fire in the second turn, but he escaped injury.

On the restart, Dewease took off on the low side and led the 12th circuit by just .091 seconds, with Pittman in tow circling the extreme top of the oval.

In a frantic effort to run Dewease back down for his second win of the year at the track, Pittman slammed the outside third-turn wall with 10 laps to go before trying the bottom groove.

But he found no traction on the bottom and instead went back to the top and when Dewease got caught up in lapped traffic, he was there with the momentum to overtake the leader, whose racer would not operate when he strayed from his low line.

It was off turn four with three laps to go when Pittman went back out front by a scant .062 second margin, one that he would not expand that much more before the finish.

Instead, Dewease kept pace with Pittman right to the end, but fell short by .442 seconds.

"Man, we aint dead 'til that checkered flag falls, that's what I keep telling myself," Pittman said" We keep sneaking these away at the end."

It was his seventh overall win of the season for owner Michael Heffner. The pair also won the Keystone Cup feature at the track in May.

"I was thinking, man what am I doing up here and I almost took the wall down one time," Pittman said, referring to his brush with the wall. "We just kept plugging away on top and I was hoping he'd just get caught up in traffic, and that's what happened," Pittman said.

Fred Rahmer, Salfordville, rode home third followed by Greg Hodnett, who claimed the 2010 speedweek series championship. Todd Shaffer was fifth. Danny Dietrich, Brent Marks, Rick Lafferty, Mark Smith and Doug Esh completed the top 10.

Hodnett's title was the third of his career after also scoring laurels in 2002 and in 2009. Pittman finished second in speedweek points, followed by Dewease, Mark Smith and Alan Krimes. Heat races were won by Dewease, Pittman and Rahmer. Chad Layton won the B Main. Fast time was set by Blane Heimbach of Selinsgrove with a time of 17.775 seconds.

Mark Smith was the winner of the series opener June 26 at Lincoln Speedway. Ed Lynch Jr. won June 27 at Bedford. Tuesday's event at Grandview went to Tyler Walker, with Alan Krimes scoring Wednesday at Hagerstown and Dewease on top Thursday in a second round at Lincoln. Pittman took leg six at Williams Grove on Friday, and Hodnett was the winner Saturday at Port Royal.

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