Kyle Lee Triumphs in Sagi Tribute at Hagerstown
By Brett Rose
HAGERSTOWN, MD – Kyle Lee drove his way to the Super Late Model triumph in the 3rd-annual Frank Sagi Tribute on Sunday evening at Hagerstown Speedway.
Pole sitter Jason Covert and Marvin Winters paced the field from the front row, and Winters powered into the lead in his throwback of Tom Peck’s “Fireball 40”.
A caution for a multi-car pileup quickly negated Winters’ lead, but he was able to maintain his position over Covert following the restart, until he slowed going into turn four on the seventh lap.
Covert inherited the lead following the stoppage for Winters, but another multi-car incident following the restart bunched the field back up.
This time, Covert had Lee to contend with, and on Lap 8, Lee drove underneath the potent No.72 machine for the lead off of turn two.
Lee began to stretch out his lead by a two second margin at the halfway point, and then began navigating traffic on Lap 19. The Mercersburg, Pennsylvania driver maneuvered his No.2t through the back markers to keep Covert at bay and take the checkered flag.
Lee said in his interview: “I was really sad for what happened to Marvin. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but that put us in a good spot on the next restart with Covert, and we just got lucky. I’m glad he chose the top lane and we were really working on the bottom. He kind of missed going into turn one and two, and that was it, man. The car was really, really good tonight.”
Covert held on to second, fending off a fast-closing Trever Feathers coming from tenth to finish third. Rounding out the top five were Gene Knaub, and Tyler Bare.
Scott Palmer picked up the Late Model Sportsman win after battling Derick Quade for the lead in the closing laps.
Quade led up until Lap 14 when Palmer used the low side off of turn four to take the lead away. Palmer’s lead was quickly negated a lap later when a caution came out for the spun car of Zach Kauffman. On the restart, Quade reclaimed the top spot from Palmer and held it until his car pushed hard into the cushion entering turn two, and Palmer moved back out front with the winning pass with two laps to go on the low side to take the victory.
Following Palmer and Quade at the finish were Barry Miller, Bruce Kane, and Randy Burkholder.
A multi-car melee marred the opening lap shortly after the green flag fell on the frontstretch of the Pure Stock feature event. No drivers were injured.
After a complete restart with the remaining cars, Craig Parrill powered past Danny Atherton up high off of turn two to lead the field, and then quickly had Michael Warrenfeltz in pursuit.
Parrill and Warrnefeltz battled side-by-side for most the feature event, until Warrenfeltz ran into the lapped car of Jeremy Mills, bringing out the final caution with just a couple laps to go.
Parrill led the restart and at the white flag lap, but Warrenfeltz was able to pull alongside the leader halfway down the backstretch, and into the lead going in to turn three over the remaining quarter of a lap to grab the win.
Parrill held off Randy Zechman to keep second, Atherton was fourth, and Joshua Bloom was fifth.
Notes: 29 Super Late Models, 30 Late Model Sportsman, and 22 Pure Stocks came out to race on this Sunday special, along with the fans and many retired drivers from the past converged at Hagerstown Speedway.
Covert set fast time during a timed hot lap session with a best lap of 18.789 seconds.
Longtime fans will recognize the name Tom Peck. The 66 year-old from McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania former racer was the special guest of honor for the 2019 Frank Sagi Tribute. He was best known for driving the “Flaming Fireball 40”, and was one of the best Super Late Model drivers on dirt before leaving the local scene to go racing in what was known as the NASCAR Busch Grand National series.
A feature winner of 171 races, Peck won 43 of them at Hagerstown along with two track championships in 1980 and 1986. Peck’s final feature win at Hagerstown came on September 5, 1988 before departing the dirt world for NASCAR where he finished fifth in BGN points during the 1990 season. His final race competed in was in 1995.
Logan Wagner made his Super Late Model debut behind the wheel of the Coleman Farms No.72, and had a tough time adapting, but put forth a valiant effort to make the show. He was awarded a provisional where he started 25th, and finished in 19th after falling out of the race.
Feature Results
Super Late Models (25 Laps) – 1. 2T-Kyle Lee, [5]; 2. 72C-Jason Covert, [1]; 3. 20-Trever Feathers, [10]; 4. 1-Gene Knaub, [7]; 5. B8-Tyler Bare, [4]; 6. 30-Allen Brannon, [12]; 7. 66C-Matt Cosner, [3]; 8. 2J-Justin Weaver, [6]; 9. 2-Dan Stone, [8]; 10. 14-Tyler Horst, [13]; 11. 41-Andy Anderson, [16]; 12. 44-Gary Stuhler, [14]; 13. 5-Brad Omps, 21]; 14. 86-Scott Palmer, [9]; 15. 85-Rodney Walls, [20]; 16. 11-Kirk Baker, [24]; 17. 59-Chad Julius, [22]; 18. 68-Nathan LaSalle, [18]; 19. 72-Logan Wagner, [25]; 20. F1-Colbey Frye, [15]; 21. 94-Jason Miller, [19]; 22. 5E-Glenn Elliott, [23]; 23. 17-Nick Dickson, [17]; 24. 40-Marvin Winters, [2]; 25. 36V-Kyle Hardy, [11]
Late Model Sportsman (20 Laps) – 1. 86-Scott Palmer,[3]; 2. 74-Derick Quade, [1]; 3. 88-Barry Miller, [2]; 4. 1K-Bruce Kane, [5]; 5. 77-Randy Burkholder, [4]; 6. 43-Cody Kershner, [14]; 7. 21-Chad Myers, [11]; 8. 8-James Lichliter, [9]; 9. 48W-Greg Moore, [8]; 10. 118-Sean Merkel, [17]; 11. 11-Joe Westerman Jr., [6]; 12. 44-Dylan Lewis, [7]; 13. 53-Tyler Kirby, [20]; 14. 000-Paul Cursey Jr., [15]; 15. 92-Frankie Gordon, [18]; 16. 5-Levi Crowl, [19]; 17. 8H-Travis Wilson, [16]; 18. 93-Cory Lawler, [24]; 19. 08K-Zach Kauffman, [13]; 20. 77S-Elwood Sord, [22]; 21. 15-Trae Armel, [23]; 22. 39-Ryan Walls, [10]; 23. 33K-Alan Sagi, [12]; 24. 72D-Dale Murphy,[21]
Pure Stock (15 Laps)– 1. 12-Michael Warrenfeltz, [3]; 2. 3-Craig Parrill, [2]; 3. 2-Randy Zechman, [7]; 4. 19-Danny Atherton, [1]; 5. 00-Joshua Bloom, [17]; 6. 65-Dillon Wilson, [10]; 7. 6-Wayne Hawbaker, [6]; 8. 59-Mike Desch, 16]; 9. 72M-Russel Shoop, [21]; 10. 15-Ricky Feltner, [13]; 11. 25-Jeremy Mills, [19]; 12. 47-Tike Loizos, [20]; 13. 29-Jason Gilliland, [18]; 14. 55-Jonathan Raley, [8]; 15. 12S-Tony Stoneberger, [4]; 16. 38M-Matt Mellott, [15]; 17. 54-Dylan Rutherford, [5]; 18. 25X-Rodney Miner, [22]; 19. 19M-Bobby Meixsell, [9]; 20. 2W-Brian Walls,[12]; 21. 69-Dwayne Snyder, [11]; 22. 57H-TJ Henry, [14]