BUFFALO TWP — Jared Miley entered Lernerville Speedway with a huge lead in the Late Models points standings.

The gap continued to grow Friday.

The South Park driver cruised to his third Late Models feature win of the season to build upon his 40-point cushion coming into the night.

Miley hopes to stay steady and hold onto his advantage in the points standings

“That’s the main thing I just want to concentrate on being real consistent,” Miley said. “We go into every race track with the same setup and just work off it.

“This car has been really good ever since I got it at the end of last year,” he added. “We’re having a good year so far and we’d like to keep it going.”

Chuck Sarver took second behind Miley in the Late Models, marking his best finish ever. He also won a heat race, another first for the West Sunbury driver.

Improvement is always the main goal.

“Last year, we had good shocks, but not a good motor,” said Sarver. “We have the good motor and chassis combination and it seems to be working a lot better this year.”

Especially Friday night, despite being uncertain of how the track would handle.

“They put new clay on the race track, so we weren’t real sure what to do with the setup,” Sarver explained. “We went ahead and made the car tight like we would if the track was dry.

“It worked good,” he added. “We’re happy with it.”

It was also a milestone night for Jack Sodeman Jr.

Sodeman suffered serious injuries from a crash on July 4 of last year during a qualifying run at Canada’s Autodrome Granby. It took several months to recover, but he worked his way back into the Sprint car.

On Friday, he worked his way back to Victory Lane.

“This is the very first feature win since I came back,” said Sodeman, “so it definitely feels good.”

Sodeman started in the fourth row and found a groove to his liking while navigating through the field. He took the lead on Lap 11 and never relinquished the advantage.

“I actually started pretty far back and it gave me an opportunity to move around the track and search for something,” Sodeman explained. “Those guys were going really good, but they didn’t have the opportunity to know that there was anything on the bottom. I just found it before everybody else and that’s really how it worked out.”

The track conditions gave many drivers issues, especially in Turns 3 and 4, but Sodeman adjusted as the race wore on.

“It just seemed the harder I ran it, the worse it was,” he said. “So, I really needed to start using my head and being smooth rather than aggressive.”

Kevin Bolland only led one lap in the Modifieds feature, but it was the one that counted.

Butler driver Steve Feder paced the field for the first 24 laps, but Bolland stole the win with a little help from lapped drivers acting as obstacles for Feder.

“That happens. Lapped traffic plays a big factor in this whole racing game,” said Bolland in Victory Lane. “I just have to hand it to my crew. This is a special win.”

Slippery Rock’s Dave Murdick, who led the Modifieds points standings heading into the night, finished fourth.

Corey McPherson jumped out to a blazing hot start in Sportsmans with two straight feature wins to kick off the year, helping him grab a five-point lead in the standings coming into the night. However, his car was a little too hot on Friday.

McPherson opened up a 3.4-second advantage on the field before a caution of Lap 17 of the 20-lap feature erased the cushion. AJ Flick zoomed around McPherson following the restart and the points leader’s car overheated, preventing McPherson from gaining any steam on the straightaways.

Flick held on for the win, his first feature crown of the season.

“Corey has just been absolutely a rocket ship all year,” said Flick in Victory Lane. “I wasn’t able to hit (Turns) 3 and 4 with the cushion right. It was rough; it was fast; it was fun.

“I wasn’t consistent enough with it. But I knew if I could get a restart and get around him, I could hold his line off.”

There were 24 Sportsman cars in the pits Friday, the most of any class, while there were 81 cars in all.