Story By: DINO OBERTO / EVERGREEN RACEWAY – BUTLER TOWNSHIP, PA – It took Mountain Top’s TJ Kapish some time to finally win a Small Car Enduro. Now it seems he can’t lose as for the second time in the last three races he’s taken a win and was second in the other.
Despite and wet and dreary Saturday afternoon Evergreen Raceway proceeded as planned with the third Gut-N-Go Enduro of the season. A field of 20 came out to race and after all was said and done the winning result was Kapish.
And just as the prior two Enduro’s run Kapish had to battle for the win right down to the wire, this time with one very strong running Steve Tito who was seeking his first Enduro win in 10 years and certainly was in contention do so.
Kapish took to the lead for the first time on the third circuit and by lap 20 would have Tito hot on his heels. Both front runners would then work through lapped traffic with keen preciseness while staying glued to each other at the same time.
For Tito, he would be able to use that same traffic to eventually trap Kapish and snag the lead at the lap 42 mark. Kapish, however, would never fall back by more than a car length.
After a red flag restart with 26 laps remaining, Kapish was able to slip by Tito but it was short lived as on the next go-around they swapped back spots. The determined Kapish wasn’t about to give in though, as he would regain the lead as yet another lap clicked off and this time for good.
The rest of the way Kapish would keep Tito at bay but by never more than a car length. He would go on to collect overall career win number 33.
Kapish and Tito were the only cars to complete the 100 lap distance. Taking third place was Peter Verwys who was two laps back. Fourth was Mike Green who was scored at 97 laps while rounding out the top five was Mark Rittenhouse Jr., who was four laps down.
Feature finish (100 laps): 1. TJ Kapish, 2. Steve Tito, 3. Peter Verwys, 4. Mike Green 5. Mark Rittenhouse Jr., 6. Jeremy Spanburgh, 7. AJ Hoffner, 8. Allan Such, 9. Jason Koch, 10. Tony Rispin, 11. Micah Adams, 12. Daniel Shrimp, 13. Skylar Hunter, 14. Tony Hilliard 15. Mike Hamilton, 16. Shawn Burd, 17. John Campbell, 18. Ray Kennedy, 19. Dan Baker, 20. Scott Adams