Familiar faces win races
BUFFALO TWP — It's all about being hooked up.
Such was the case for all four feature winners Friday night at Lernerville Speedway.
Rod George, Gregg Satterlee, Del Rougeux Jr. and Bob Lipinski continued successful trends for themselves at the Sarver track.
George secured his 39th career Sprint feature win at Lernerville. The Kittanning driver started in the front row, passed pole-sitter Mike Lutz just before Turn 1 on the seventh lap and cruised to victory from there.
It was George's first feature victory at Lernerville this season, but he's already won three times at Mercer Raceway Park and finished second to Ed Lynch Jr. the past two Fab Four Fridays.
Lynch had to start 24th after winning the first three Sprint feature races of the campaign.
"That made things a lot easier, but I would rather have had Ed running up front with me," George said. "The races are a lot more fun that way."
Lynch finished ninth Friday after collecting his fourth consecutive heat race win and seventh checkered flag in as many races to begin the season
George credits his early success this year to the return of crew chief Rick Libeccio.
"We decided to part ways last year, but now that we're back together, we've picked up where we left off in 2007," George said. "Rick always has the car set up right. If I don't screw up, it's on the money."
Satterlee has been on the money in a new Late Model all season. He picked up his third feature win at Lernerville, starting 12th and getting up to third by the seventh lap.
Satterlee got around Matt Lux on the 15th lap and pulled away from the rest of the field.
Jared Miley of South Park, a good friend of Satterlee's, started ninth and finished a distant second in a race that ran all 25 laps without a caution.
"I needed one and didn't get it," Miley said. "Gregg's been great everywhere this year with that car, but we were good tonight, too."
Satterlee finished third in the only Fab Four Late Model race he hasn't won at Lernerville thus far in 2009.
"This car has been so versatile," the Rochester Mills driver said. "It's been effective on any kind of surface.
"I was in lapped traffic when I got the lead, so I wasn't sure where anyone else was. I never looked at the scoreboard. I just concentrated on holding my line and getting through traffic."
Rougeux started 12th in the Modified feature after winning last week. He took advantage of four restarts in the first five laps to grab the lead from Slippery Rock's Dave Murdick on the fourth restart.
Murdick nearly took it back from him on a 25th-lap restart.
"I was right there with him coming around the turn. I just couldn't get (the car) to turn," Murdick said. "We were so close."
Murdick finished third the previous week. Rougeux now has back-to-back feature wins in the Modified division. He had never won on consecutive weeks through eight years of racing at Lernerville.
"We needed those 20 successive laps to heat up our tires and get the car to run the way we set it up to run," Rougeux said. "I like how we're running down here.
"Our goal in the preseason was to win the (points) title here and win the BRP Modified Tour. Those are the only two places we're running religiously all the time this year."
Lipinski became a back-to-back winner in the Sportsman Stocks, starting 12th, taking the lead from Saxonburg's Wayne Carbo on the seventh lap, then winning a duel with Bob Egley over the final two laps.
Lipinski and Egley swapped the lead on the 19th lap before Lipinski nipped the No. 30 car at the wire.
Notes: There were 96 cars in the pits. ... Modified points leader Kevin Bolland had to drop out of the feature when his car sustained rear-end damage during a third-lap mishap.
