Montieth wins two in a row, Rahmer leads PA Speedweeks

Pennsylvania Speedweeks 410 Sprint Car series hit close to our area earlier this week.

The Pennsylvania Posse of drivers came to Big Diamond Raceway in Minersville and then traveled to Grandview Speedway in nearby Bechtelsville.

Big Diamond hosted the Monday night event which was race two of the PA Speedweek series. Brian Montieth, driver of the No. 21 Auto Locator machine led every lap in the 30-lap feature event to take home the $5,000 prize.

Montieth began the night on the pole and shot out to a nice lead early on. Lapped traffic as always gave second place driver Danny Dietrich the ability to close in on Montieth, but a caution for a Paul McMahan wreck in turn four kept Montieth at the front.

It seemed everytime Montieth looked like he was going to be challenged for the lead a caution would wave. Montieth's car was great all night on the restarts and he held on for the victory, which was his second in two days. Montieth took the first win of the PA Speedweeks series that was held at Lincoln Speedway the previous night.

Rounding out the top five at Big Diamond was Dietrich, Daryn Pittman, Lance Dewease, and Alan Krimes.

The 410's then took their talents to Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville for the third installment of the PA Speedweek series.

It was the always popular driver of Greg Hodnett that took the 35-lap $5,000 showcase in front of a capacity crowd on Tuesday night.

There were multiple battles for the lead at the exciting Grandview Speedway, with Alan Krimes dominating the first 23 laps of the race. Krimes was being chased by Stevie Smith and Hodnett and was no doubt feeling the heat from the two drivers.

A caution on lap 23 brought out by a Dietrich spin in turn three gave Smith and Hodnett the chance to load up and chase Krimes once again.

On the following restart Krimes still remained the leader with Smith and Hodnett still contesting for the lead. Brian Montieth then threw his hat into the ring making it a four car race after a caution waved once again for a slow car in turn two.

Krimes ran into bad luck on lap 29 when his Conestoga Valley Garage machine got a flat tire handing over the lead to Stevie Smith. Smith was then struck with the same bad luck receiving a flat on lap 33 in turn handing the lead over to Hodnett, who stayed in front to get the win.

Montieth, Kyle Larson, Fred Rahmer, and Brian Leppo rounded out the top five at Grandview.

There have been two other events besides the races at Lincoln, Big Diamond, and Grandview with the drivers racing at Hagerstown, Maryland on Wednesday night and Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsburg on Thursday night.

Veteran Keith Kauffman took the event at Hagerstown, while Logan Schuchart took the feature at Williams Grove.

Five races into the PA Speedweek "Fast" Freddy Rahmer is a top the point standings with three more races to go.

The sprinters will compete at Williams Grove on Friday night, Port Royal Speedway on Saturday night, and finish up at Selinsgrove on Sunday night.