Story By: MICHAEL BENJAMIN / NY / PENN IMCA MODIFIED SERIES – MONROETON, PA – July 4th weekend and the NY/Penn IMCA Modified Series finally gets the weather they were looking for Friday night at The Hill Speedway in Monroeton, Pa.
The series drew in the biggest crowd of cars yet this season with 20 drivers registered for the nights 25 lap $1000 to win.
The night saw things kicking off with 3 heat races with 7 cars in the first two heats and 6 cars in the third. Keith Lamphere muscled his car to grab the heat one win. IMCA Northeast director and series promoter Jake Maynard grabbed heat 2 win. Heat three went to New York native Tyler Stoddard.
After all the nights heat races were complete. The track crew went to work on getting the racing surface ready for the feature and boy did it not disappoint. When the cars hit the track, we saw Clayton Tarabori in his 16T and Gary Lamphere in the 83 bring the field to the green. Tarabori would lead the first three circuits with the first caution flying on lap two. Lap four Jake Maynard would find himself in the top spot until getting passed by eventual race winner Brad Sites on lap 10. Sites would hold on to the top spot when the final caution flag of the night bunched up the field with 4 laps to go on lap 21. Rodney Morgan found himself in the runner up spot and gave Sites some pressure when the green flag flew again. Brad would pull away and grab the checkers. Second was Rodney
Morgan, third went to veteran driver Gary Roberts, with Keith Lamphere and Harry Ely rounding out the top 5. Gary Roberts picked up the Flow Force Pressure Services Hard Charger award after coming from the 13th starting position.
The series was due to head west this past Sunday and hit Bradford Speedway for race 7 of the season. Mother nature had her way and canceled the show. Teams will now get ready to hit The Hill Speedway again for series race number 8 for the Third Annual Billy Maynard Memorial race July 14th. Last year the series saw Eddie Sites take the checker flag. Can he repeat this year?