Posted June 9, 2019 by Kyle Symons Uncategorized

The Story from BAPS – Eliason grabs first Pennsylvania victory in Greg Hodnett Foundation Race

NEWBERRYTOWN, Pa. – All Star Circuit of Champions regular and invader Cory Eliason picked up his first-ever win in Central Pennsylvania by picking up a $4,000 victory in the Greg Hodnett Foundation Race at BAPS Motor Speedway on Thursday night. Eliason survived a late-race restart with a stumbling motor and a slider that he crossed over to pick up the big win.

23 cars were on hand for the event that was a benefit event to the Greg Hodnett Foundation. The foundation was started by Hodnett’s wife Sherry Hodnett in his memory. The goal of the foundation is to create the Survivor’s Benefit to help ease the financial burden of a driver’s family if tragedy strikes and that family member is taken from us in a racing incident.

There were no time trials for the event as drivers drew for their starting positions for the three heat races. Heat one went to Lucas Wolfe over Cory Haas, J.J. Grasso, Steve Buckwalter and Mallie Shuster. Heat two was won by Ryan Smith over Eliason, Danny Dietrich, Anthony Macri and Kyle Reinhardt. The final heat race was won by Jordan Givler over Gerard McIntyre, Brian Montieth, Bradley Howard and Dylan Norris.

The top three finishers from each heat race were placed into a revenge redraw where drivers drew a starting position and then handed that starting position to another driver in the redraw. When all was said and done Haas and Givler were the front row starters for the 27-lap feature in honor of Hodnett.

When the green flag dropped, Eliason worked his way into the runner-up position coming off of turn two from his starting position outside the second row. Eliason worked his way into the lead on lap four, and right after Eliason took the lead second-running Haas pulled to the infield with mechanical issues.

As this was going on Danny Dietrich was working his way to the front of the field. On lap 11 though catastrophe would strike Dietrich as he was passing Grasso for second position. As he slid in front of Grasso in turn three, Dietrich would find his car slightly sideways. Grasso had nowhere to go and ended up spinning Dietrich around.

On a late-race restart Montieth put a slider on Eliason for the lead, but Eliason would cut back underneath Montieth coming off of turn four and win the race to the line. Eliason was not challenged over the final two laps of the event and would go on to pick up his first-ever win in Central Pennsylvania.

Feature Finish