Bolland captures 100th Modified win
BUFFALO TWP - Hitting 100.
Kevin Bolland did it Friday night. Ed Lynch Jr. is taking aim at it. Neither plans to stop there.
Bolland claimed his 100th career Modified feature win and his 43rd at Lernerville Speedway Friday night. The New Brighton driver started on the pole and led from wire to wire.
"I was never one to say I'll get to 100 wins and then I'll quit," said Bolland, now in his 27th year of racing. "I'll continue to race as long as I can be competitive.
"It's not just about the guy behind the wheel. My crew put in long hours getting the car ready and checking it out constantly. I've got a good team and I've had one for a while."
He also has a son who is a senior at Penn State-Beaver and eager to get behind the wheel of a Modified himself.
Deric Bolland, 21, is carrying a 3.9 grade point average as a computer science major.
"I always told him he has to graduate college first and if he still wants to race, we'll find a way," Bolland said. "We've got enough parts to put two cars out there."
Brian Swartzlander finished a distant second to Bolland on what was a very choppy track.
"This wasn't a typical Lernerville track," Swartzlander said. "It was hard to find anywhere to race. You had to keep trying stuff."
Lynch has been around quite a while himself. The Apollo Rocket won his second Sprint feature in as many tries this season at Lernerville.
Lynch started fifth, got the lead from Mike Lutz on the 10th lap and never gave it up. He owns 95 Sprint feature wins at Lernerville, 40 more than runner up Johnny Beaber.
"We put a lot of long hours in at the garage," Lynch said. "I've got a lot of races in here. It's close to home.
"They have a lot of special races on this track that I like to prepare for and do well in. So I'm always racing against the clock, not just my competitors. That helps, too."
Lynch, whose father raced at Lernerville, said 100 wins would "complete my resume at this place."
While he admitted the track was choppy, Lynch was one of the few drivers who didn't have a problem with it.
"They (track groomers) battled the rain all week," he said. "Personally, I like a track that's 'bad fast' and that's what we had tonight."
Two-time defending Late Model points champion Alex Ferree of Saxonburg started up front for Friday's feature and led the first 17 laps before Greg Satterlee caught him on No. 18.
Trying to regain the lead, Ferree circled Turn 4 too high on the 24th lap and got into the wall, ending his evening.
Satterlee lost the lead on the 24th-lap restart, however, enabling Dave Hess Jr. of Waterford to secure his third career Lernerville Late Model win.
"I knew Greg would take the high groove, so I worked down low," Hess said of the restart. "I needed him to bobble between (turns) 1 and 2 and that's what happened."
Satterlee, who won here opening night, said he was losing his engine toward the end of the race.
"All the water was gone. ... I lost my fan belt because we overheated," he said. "If it wasn't for those last two laps, we had it.
"The car was taking a pounding out there. It (the track) was really, really bad. It was ridiculously bad."
Wayne Carbo of Saxonburg won the Sportsman Stock feature, starting fifth and grabbing the lead from pole-sitter Paul Schreckengost on the 10th lap.
The win was Carbo's sixth career feature triumph at Lernerville.
Notes: There were 86 cars in the pits for the first points night of the season. ... John Garvin Jr. of Sarver finished a career-high second in the Late Model feature. ... Dennis Slater, 55, of Butler, made his season debut in the No. 69 Modified after running three times last season. He hit the wall during his heat race, damaged the chassis and was done for the night. "I've been a car owner since 1996 and had this paid-for Modified sitting in my garage," Slater said. "I've always wanted to drive. At least I got it out of my system."
