8/13/2019
NRA Sprint Invaders
Justin Barger Wins At Mercer
By Jim Balentine Jr and Paul Harkenrider (Patriot Sprints)
Justin Barger becomes 8th winner in 8 Patriot 360 Sprint features at Michael’s Mercer Raceway! Vigneri wins 1st in Big Block Mods, Brian Schaffer wins 1st career in FASTRAK Modifieds, Shook and Vivian Jones repeat in Minis and Mod Lites.
MERCER PA- Mother nature graced Michael’s Mercer Raceway with fantastic weather, and 3 new winners graced victory lane as Justin Barger won his 1st ever Mercer Patriot 360 Sprint feature, Brian Schaffer took his 1st career win in the Turn 4 Toilets FASTRAK Limited Modifieds, Phil Vigneri won his 1st ever Mercer Diel Ram Big Block Modified feature, while Shane Shook picked up his 10th career Mercer Ray’s Racing Collectibles/Eperthener Auto Wrecking Mini stocks, and Vivan Jones win her 5th Barris Trucking Mod Lite event.
(Patriot Sprint story by Paul Harkenrider) It has been since 2015 since Justin Barger has won a Patriot Sprint Tour A-Main but all of that changed Saturday when he led all 25 laps and held off rookie Matt Farnham and veteran, Jared Zimbardi.
“We were able to move around a lot and I think that’s what got us the win” stated Barger. “Usually when you get to lap traffic and you are the leader, you don’t really want that but we had a few chances to get a couple good laps in to pull away and we did.”
Barger started alongside Matt Farnham who was making his first ever start in a 360-sprint car after a couple starts in a Crate Sprint at Ohsweken.Barger would pull out to an early race lead but Farnham would still be in the striking distance as they encountered lap traffic early on lap five which allowed Farnham to show Barger his nose wing a couple times in the first half of the race.
The only caution that occurred in the 25-lap affair was on lap 12 with Steve Glover spun in turn two and that would restack the field.
The clean air would play in Barger’s favor on the restart as he would build an advantage once again on the restart, but that lead would be all but gone on lap 16 when he again met lap traffic and both Farnham and Zimbardi would be right there racing for top position.
Barger would continue to weave through lap traffic which would only help him because Farnham and Zimbardi would also have their own battle for that runner up spot.Farnham and Zimbardi had one last opportunity on lap 23 to challenge Barger but just could not get by the race leader. Barger would take home the win, followed by rookie Matt Farnham, Jared Zimbardi, Davie Franek and NRA competitor, Hud Horton.
A-Verdi Storage Containers Patriot Sprint Tour/ K&L Ready Mix NRA Quick Results
A Main: 1) 5-JUSTIN BARGER (1) 2) 7NY-Matt Farnham 3) 35-Jared Zimbardi 4) 28f-Davie Franek 5) 28H-Hus Horton 6) 10k-Joe Kata 7) 49D-Shawn Dancer 8) 49K-Scott Kreutter 9) 22R-Mike Koehler 10) 23-Devon Dobbie 11) 22H-Randy Hannagan 12) 10-Mitch Brown 13) 17-Jared Hortsman 14) 98-Joe Trenca 15) 79-Jordan Thomas 16) 20-Jim Shuster 17) 10J-CJ Jones 18) 67-Pete Richardson 19) 99-John Trenca 20) 76-Mallie Shuster 21) 1-10-Jake Brown 22) 14-Luke Daugherty 23) 16L-Roger Levesque 24) 121- Steve Glover
Article Credit: Paul Harkenrider & Jim Balentine
