Breaking Through
BUFFALO TWP — Entering Friday night's Fab Four racing at Lernerville Speedway, John Garvin Jr. was pleased to be leading the Late Model point standings, though victory lane had eluded the Sarver driver.
But he corralled it for the first time this season with a dominating performance.
Garvin took the lead from Brian Swartzlander on the second lap of the feature, and despite four restarts, captured the checkered flag by a wide margin in front of runner-up Jason Rider.
Earlier in the night, Garvin won his third heat race this year at the Sarver oval.
“The car did well tonight,” said Garvin, who lives just 3 miles from the track. “I was able to run both the top and the bottom. It's good to win at home.”
The Late Model feature race's first three caution flags were waved on the third, fifth and ninth laps. The final one came with Garvin holding a sizeable edge on Michael Norris on lap No. 20. Despite being brought back to the field on the restart, Garvin was confident.
“I knew there were six laps left and I went to the bottom and got in a groove there,” he said. “Nobody had passed me up to that point and I didn't think they would unless I jumped the cushion or blew a tire.”
The victory added to an impressive 2013 for Garvin, who is in his fifth year of racing regularly at Lernerville.
“We haven't finished worse than fourth this year,” he said. “Tonight, we won our heat race and started third in the feature, which was nice.”
Carl Bowser almost gave Sarver drivers two feature wins. He led the Sprint event until encountering lapped traffic on No. 14, which allowed Eric Williams to move into the top spot and the Greenville resident never gave it up. Bowser placed second, the fourth time this year he has placed in the top five.
On lap 25, Dan Kuriger's car went over the bank in between turns one and two, which necessitated a red flag. Due to the action being stopped so late in the race, Williams was forced to hold off Bowser for a 26th lap, which the former did successfully.“I'm getting too old for this,” Williams said with a laugh. “With the red flag, I knew we would be racing two more laps for the checkered and things worked out for us.”Swartzlander, a Leechburg resident, led the Modified feature from start to finish as he bettered his own Lernerville wins record in the division. He now has 79 victories. The field dealt with four restarts.“The car wasn't great tonight, but it had enough,” he said. “It was a fun race.”Corey McPherson, of Tarentum, closed the night with a victory in the Sportsman Stock feature, his third win this year. He also drove into victory lane May 3 and 17. Like Swartzlander in Modified action, McPherson led the entire race, though a caution flag on the 20th lap led to an extra lap.On the restart, McPherson remained high while A.J. Flick, who placed second, went low.“I'm not going to lie, I was a little worried with the restart,” said McPherson. “The track was a little rough up high, but it was a lot of fun.”Note: There were 86 cars in the pits, with a high of 26 Sportsman Stocks and a low of 18 Modifieds.
