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Ashton
and Rohrbaugh Win Season Finale Twin 50s; Harrison Achieves First
SCSCS Championship
Jennerstown,
Pennsylvania (August 29, 2016) – A wide variety of storylines
paired with differing sets of goals were ready to be played out
entering the Heritage Coal / Farmer’s Union Co-Op Night at the
Races presented by Grip Clean. A
new Super Cup Stock Car Series champion was certain to be crowned by
the end of the night, but some feel good tales involving some
unexpected familiar faces would take place up front as a series
record number of competitors graced Jennerstown Speedway on Saturday
evening.
Larry Berg started
off the day continuing the streak of no repeat fast qualifiers in
2016 in his No. 7 Grant County Mulch, Inc. Ford.
Bill Ashton, for the second time this season at the 1/2-mile
facility, redrew the pole starting spot.
Ashton proved to
have his car dialed in better on this occasion from the start. He
and championship contender Brent
Nelson fought for the top spot
early on. The Hopwood,
Pennsylvania driver of 
the
No. 35 Ethel’s Edibles / Medved Moving & Storage Chevrolet led
early on but drifted back to fourth in the middle stages of the
race.
Points leader
Harvey Harrison made his first presence known near the front of the
field early on, after narrowly avoiding a multi-car incident
involving series newcomers Steve Harvilla and Clair Zimmerman.
He would get by Nelson for the lead after another restart
following the halfway point.
Nevertheless,
lurking on the outside line was Ashton, who worked around Harrison
for the top spot again with 15 laps remaining.
Ashton previously
had a decal graphic on his car that read “But I’m Gonna Be a
Diamond Someday” after a country song from the early 1980’s
titled “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal”.
Saturday was that day for the 62-year-young’s driving
career, as he went on to pull away and claim his first SCSCS
victory.
A crowd of cheers
erupted from the packed house of area fans that have watched him
wheel a Street Stock at the speedway over several years.
“This car never
lost its grip,” Ashton mentioned following a celebration filled
with both jubilation and exhaustion.
“It seemed like everyone else’s cars were going away and
mine just kept getting better, especially after a caution.
The tires would cool a little bit and it was great.”
The meaningful win
turned out to be slightly on the bittersweet side as well.
“It’s real big
because I’m thinking about this being my last year,” Ashton
emotionally noted. “Being
my home track and all, a win here, I can’t even explain how it
feels. It’s just that
cool.”
Harrison,
Nelson, Berg, and Stephen Cox rounded out the top five finishers in
the first event of the evening.
In between 50-lap
features there was a noticeable adjustment in the lineup.
Codie Rohrbaugh, who spent the first race in a crew chief
role for Cox, was picked to compete in place of his grandfather,
Berg. As a result of the
driver change, the Petersburg, West Virginia racer had to start from
the rear of the field.
It would not take
the already four-time Jennerstown winner long to find his way to the
lead. On lap 10,
Rohrbaugh dove inside to make it three wide under redraw pole
starter Nelson and Jeff Zillweger for the top spot.
From there it was
all Rohrbaugh as he pulled away to a convincing victory by a large
advantage, becoming the first and only repeat winner of 2016.
“I had no
intentions to (race tonight),” Rohrbaugh admitted.
“We run here so much that it kind of just comes natural.
It doesn’t matter what you do or how many times you do it,
winning always feels good.”
Rohrbaugh
additionally indicated that the car did not have the handle that it
needed for Berg in the first race.
In fact, the team only assembled the ride within the previous
day and a half in preparation to bring the late entry to the track
on Saturday.
“We
made a lot of major changes between the races, and it luckily worked
out for us,” Rohrbaugh said. “I
really hate that I didn’t have a better car for Pap.
I wish that he was in it the second time and I was in it the
first time, but that’s how it works.”
The battle for the
championship was a close one on track behind Rohrbaugh.
The margin remained the same, 46 points, as it did entering
the first event. That
meant if Harrison finished sixth or better he would lock up his
first SCSCS title no matter where Nelson finished.
Nelson came home in
the runner-up position after fighting hard with Zillweger, who
finished a best career third. Harrison
finished right on the tail of those two though, clinching the
championship.
It certainly was
not easy; however, throughout the day for the Renick, West Virginia
veteran.
“We fought the
car because we changed the whole setup trying to get some forward
bite,” the driver of the No. 51 Southern Coal Corporation
Chevrolet explained. “Our
car has been really fast but it would just spin so much, and when
you’re dirt trackin’ out on these asphalt tracks it looks cool
and believe me it’s a blast, but it’s not fast.
“That’s why I
was practicing so much today. It
wasn’t to pick up speed, but I was trying to get the car to turn.
The first race, I had such a bad push that I had to keep it
on the bottom of the track and use the whole race track to run.”
Improvement
was the key going into the final event of the season, but at the
same time Harrison knew he had to play things somewhat on the
conservative side instead of racing hard for the win.
“We worked on it
a little bit and made it better for the second race,” Harrison
continued. “It was one
of those deals where I felt like I really could have abused the car
and made the passes in front of me, but to stand a chance at
wrecking I had to make a decision and try to win the
championship.”
Nelson came up only
31 points short of his first career title in his No. 80 Airtek Inc.
Chevrolet, but it certainly was not due to a lack of effort.
“I gave it all I
had,” Nelson commented. “I
knew that Harvey was going to be strong.
We did what we needed to do, but it just wasn’t good
enough.”
More first-hand
analysis recapping the 2016 season as well as a summarization of the
weekend’s awards breakfast and trophy presentation will follow in
the coming days.
Both Heritage Coal
/ Farmer’s Union Co-Op Night at the Races presented by Grip Clean
features will air nationally at a future date on MAVTV.
Please visit mavtv.com for
full listings of televised coverage of SCSCS events, which are
slated to begin on Thursday, September 1 with the season opening
Midvale Speedway event from early June.
For news and
developments over the off-season leading into 2017 please be sure to
consult the official series web site at www.supercupstockcarseries.com,
Super Cup Stock Car Series Facebook at www.facebook.com/SCSCSRacing,
or Twitter @SCSCSRacing.
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