SARVER, Pa. – A.J. Flick took the lead with two laps remaining en route to winning the sprint feature Saturday night at Lernerville Speedway.
The 30-lap headliner for the PA Speedweek/Peoples Sprints saw Sye Lynch and Brandon Matus lead the field to the green.
Lynch controlled the field until a lap 7 caution brought the field back together.
Flick, trying to make up ground on the race leaders, slipped off the backstretch on lap 12 and slid back to the fifth spot behind Ryan Timms. Flick caught a break just two laps later as the events second caution flew on lap 14 for the fifth-place car of Timms, who spun in turn four, allowing Flick to restart right behind the top three runners.
Lynch again controlled the restart, but the caution flew quickly as the second-place car of Matus spun in turn two which also collected Bob Felmlee who was scored in the fifth spot at the time.
After another quick caution on lap 16, Lynch remained up front as Bowser and Flick battled for the runner-up spot.
On lap 21, Flick made his way around Bowser for second but not without a little contact that flattened the left rear tire of the former Lernerville Champion Bowser, which forced another caution as Bowser stopped in turn four.
Lynch made light work of the restart and looked to be well on his way to the victory until disaster struck on lap 29.
As Lynch was taking the white flag, he had a monster run on a lapped car and mistimed his attempt to overtake the lapper and made contact with the slower car.
The contact sent Lynch spinning into the front stretch wall and taking him out of contention for the win.
Inheriting the lead was Flick, who held off 2021 Speedweek champion Ryan Smith for the remaining two laps to claim the $3,000 victory. Smith came home second with Danny Kuriger finishing third ahead of Denny Peebles in fourth and Darin Gallagher in fifth.
“It’s special you know,” Flick said. “The heritage from this (Western PA Sprint Speedweek) is pretty crazy so, to know we were able to come out with a win after Tyler (Beichner) brought it back, huge shoutout to him for everything he and his father did to get this going again, this is special.
“Attrition is right, I saw Brandon (Matus) break right in front of us going in (turn) one, I know Carl (Bowser) and I hit in the middle of the backstretch, I don’t know if I was going up and he was coming down, I know he’s probably not happy about it. And then Sye (Lynch), worn place, wrong time or misjudged, I don’t know, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good any day after the bad luck we had two weeks ago. I’m proud to go from tenth to first, I’ll take it.”
Colton Flinner scored the Precise Late Models victory from his outside pole starting position.
Jeremiah Shingledecker earned his first Lernerville victory of the season in the modified class.
The pro stock class victory went to Chris Schneider.
The Finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 2-AJ Flick[10]; 2. 6R-Ryan Smith[13]; 3. 08-Danny Kuriger[15]; 4. 3-Denny Peebles[23]; 5. 12-Darin Gallagher[12]; 6. 29-Dan Shetler[16]; 7. 46-Michael Bauer[11]; 8. 5T-Ryan Timms[6]; 9. 33-Brent Matus[9]; 10. 6-Bob Felmlee[8]; 11. 22R-Ryan Fredericks[24]; 12. 35W-Jeremy Weaver[20]; 13. 29M-Logan McCandless[14]; 14. 31C-Chase Metheney[22]; 15. 32-Rod Jones[7]; 16. 42-Sye Lynch[1]; 17. 32V-Vivian Jones[21]; 18. 11-Carl Bowser[3]; 19. 23-Darren Pifer[17]; 20. 20B-Cody Bova[4]; 21. 38-Leyton Wagner[19]; 22. 40-George Hobaugh Jr[18]; 23. 13-Brandon Matus[2]; 24. 35-Jared Zimbardi[5]
Keyword: Flick Takes $3,000 Prize At Lernerville