Jul. 18—FORESTVILLE — All Duane Howard needed was one more chance.
After surrendering the lead to Ryan Krachun, seeking his first 358 modified feature victory at Big Diamond Speedway, Howard wanted another shot.
“I spun the tires there when Ryan got me coming off (turn) four,” the Oley driver said Friday night in Victory Lane. “I needed to get him back. I had such a good car that I wasn’t going to give it up.”
After a two-car spin in the first turn with nine laps remaining in the 25-lap feature brought out the yellow flag, Howard got the jump on Krachun on the restart and became the division’s eighth different winner in 10 features this season at Big Diamond.
Howard wasn’t the only driver with his first victory Friday night, when rain forced an 18-minute delay during the heat races.
Twelve-year-old Logan Watt, of Boyertown, collected his first victory in the 602 crate sportsman feature. Branchdale’s Ronny Suhr Jr. became the newest feature winner in roadrunners, and Middleburg’s Andrew Yoder won the 20-lap limited late model feature.
In a feature that went 35 laps in the first two years it was held, Howard needed just 25 laps to join Craig Von Dohren and Ryan Godown as the winner of the topless race, in which teams removed the roofs from the cars.
The same alteration was used by the crate sportsmen and the limited late models.
“You feel a little bit more out in the open, which makes you feel more like it’s an open-wheel car,” said Howard, who took his 81st win at Big Diamond. “I’ve been able to drive an open-wheel car a few times, so it brought back memories like that.”
The feature had four leaders as polesitter Kevin Beach Jr. and Louden Reimert held the point before Howard, who started 10th as the division’s points leader, drove to the front on a restart on the seventh lap. That was caused by a spin by Craig Von Dohren, whose third attempt to earn his 100th career win ended when he then took his car to the pits.
Howard led until Krachun passed him after the fourth of the race’s six caution flags. Krachun led three laps before back-to-back yellow flags slowed the field. After the second, Howard made his move to the front to stay.
“I ran into (the turn) as normal as I always do, but he just seemed like he had a better car later in the race,” Krachun said. “I think we had the car to beat in the middle of it.”
Defending feature winner Mike Gular was third ahead of Brett Kressley and Jared Umbenhauer.
Watt’s victory set off a big celebration in the shed used for inspecting the top three finishers’ cars after each feature. The son of longtime modified standout Ryan Watt won in just his fifth career start at Big Diamond.
Shon Elk led the first nine laps of the 20-lap race, but the race was stopped when Zane Roth’s car rolled in the third turn. On the restart, Watt slipped past Elk and led the rest of the way.
“My tires weren’t coming in yet, and it took like five laps for them to come in,” Watt said.
Watt pulled away from Danny Buccafusca with two laps remaining to preserve his win. Steve Davis was third ahead of Elk and Doug Smith.
Suhr took the top spot from Dave Schultz on the third lap and held off Matt Ney for most of the roadrunner race. Andrew Fayash III passed Ney on the final lap for second place. Alex Schoffstall was fourth and Kris Ney took fifth.
“We had a tough beginning of the year,” Suhr said. “The car was just fighting us. We had some bad suspension parts we found. Just the past couple of weeks, we had some bad incidents. We probably should have picked one or two (wins) at the beginning of the year, but we’re just glad we got here.”
Yoder, who won the limited late model feature in last October’s Diamond Nationals, dominated Friday’s seven-car feature to beat runner-up Travis Mease by 11.885 seconds. The race went nonstop in 5 minutes, 48.261 seconds, enabling the entire program to end at 10:22 p.m.
“Two or three weeks ago, we were here and we just missed (the setup) a little bit and we weren’t consistent enough,” Yoder said. “But we found a balance point now and hopefully we can keep it rolling.”
Sean Merkel was third ahead of heat winner Wayne Pfeil and Danny Snyder.
In other heat action, the winners were Krachun, Beach and Kyle Merkel in modifieds, Suhr and Schoffstall in roadrunners and Smith, Watt and Daryl Dissinger in crate sportsmen. Doug Snyder won the crate sportsmen’s consolation.
Schoffstall’s heat win was his track-best sixth of the season.
Big Diamond will host the 358 modifieds, open and 602 crate sportsmen, the Pennsylvania/Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series 305 sprints and roadrunners in next Friday’s program.
Contact the writer: ccurley@republicanherald.com; 570-628-6019; @ChuckCurley on Twitter