The 49th annual Spring Sizzler at the historic Stafford Motor Speedway took place tonight after being postponed from last Sunday due to weather. With that said it was worth the wait and there was definitely a wait as the race started just over an hour late due to other divisions at Stafford racing and track repairs.
Going into the race we saw the Tommy Baldwin Racing entry of Jon McKennedy being the fastest in practice. Overall though it would be Matt Swanson who would start the race p1 in the main event and would go on to dominate the first quarter till he was passed by Doug Coby going on lap 53, but he would end up retaking the lead on lap 70. One of the biggest surprises on the night was Max McLaughlin struggling as he came in being a favorite to win, after going a lap down very early on Max was just not able to get anything going.
In the first 65 laps we only saw two yellow flags so there were long periods of green flag runs early on, which could be a good thing if you car feels great or a bad thing if it needs adjustments via pit stop.
Local favorite Ryan Preece came into this race ahead of what is a triple duty weekend as he will be in the Tri track Series opener Saturday and the Cup Series race at Kansa on Sunday. Preece had a strong outing as he was a contender all race long, but would end up spinning out after contact with Ron Silk. One of the most notable drivers going into this race was Eric Goodale who won the season opener at Martinsville and was looking for win number two, which would have been back to back wins, he did not make much noise but due to yellows he would end up getting a strong finish.
We saw the 'big one' occur with just 39 to go as a lot of contenders such as Matt Swanson and Matt Galko were involved. Mother nature played a factor at the end of the race as a few drops of rain began to fall, with that said with drivers not knowing how bad it would be the aggressiveness ramped up. Soon after the first drops we ended up having drivers come down to pit road. It is safe to say that this years spring sizzler was definitely a drizzlier.
Overall though before the yellow we definitely saw more aggressiveness from drivers than what we would usually see towards the end of the race. We ended up seeing the leaders take each other out with 27 laps to go as Ryan Preece and Ron Silk made contact leading the race, with almost all of the top 5 drivers being involved, that came after Woody Pitkat spun into turns one and two and was not able to get his car refried due to a flat tire, but no caution came out.
At the end of the night it was Patrick Emerling getting the win in the rain shortened race, this marks his first ever spring sizzler win and his first win of the season. During the race Emerling was pretty quiet, but came out and made noise when it counted by putting himself in a great position. This is his second win in the series (First coming in 2017.) He will win this race without leading a green flag lap and actually going a lap down under green earlier in the race.
TOP 3
Emerling
Goodale
Catalano
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