Billy Pauch Jr., scores SpeedSTR win at Bloomsburg Fair Raceway; Rodney Morgan tops IMCA field

(BLOOMBURG 6-18-22): The All Pro SpeedSTRs and NY/PA IMCA Modifieds joined in with the USAC Sprints as part of the finale of the Eastern Storm tour at the Bloomsburg Fair Raceway to make for a well-rounded Father’s Day evening at the 3/8th mile dirt oval at the historic Bloomsburg Fairgrounds.

Billy Pauch Jr., of Milford, NJ and Rodney Morgan of Troy where the respective winners in the SpeedSTRs and Modifieds.

In the SpeedSTR main heat winners Pauch and Rich Tobias shared the front row for the start of the 20 lap contest. When the action commenced Pauch wasted little time in darting out the early lead with Tobias in tow.

Unfortunately Tobias’ night was over on lap four when his steering broke and he was forced to pull out of the race.

In the meantime Pauch was still holding a solid lead, doing so by a few car lengths over Louden Reimert. Reimert was busy at the time fending off hard charging Alex Bright as the pair battled closely for second. Mike Bednar was also hovering closely.

Bright’s strong effort was cut short during a lap 11 caution period when he suddenly pulled off with mechanical woes.

On that restart Pauch remained in control, doing so with a nice run on the bottom. In the meantime Bednar and Reimert engaged in a thrilling toe-to-toe battle for second. After some close back and forth laps Bednar was able to secure the spot with six laps to go.

He then began to reel in Pauch and even had a few opportunities during late race cautions that lined the field up double file for an over-take. But after a getting a lap back under green Pauch was able to stay the course and get his rhythm going again.

“The magneto started to get hot and it starts to sputter in long races and we’ll have to fix that for Wednesday (Kutztown),” noted Pauch.

In the closing laps Bednar stayed within reach of Pauch who went on to notch the flag-to-flag victory and record his first time at winning at Bloomsburg.

“We worked our tails off tonight. We had a bolt come loose and had to redo the whole driveshaft,” said Pauch.

“This car has been awesome here and I want to thank Mike Heffner and Lelands.com and everyone who makes this go around. It’s pretty cool to win on Father’s Day and it’s cool I can now add Bloomsburg to our winning list,” he continued.

“I really enjoy coming here to Bloomsburg. Brian (Wawroski) and his team really work hard and the track keeps getting better and better each time we come here. This is a state of the art facility.”

Reimert held on for third with Dillon Steuer and Tom Mayberry rounding out the top five.

Bednar’s effort was good and well fought although he admitted Pauch just had that little something extra over him.

“Billy was the class of the field tonight and I’m glad we finished second because I didn’t think we had the car to really compete,” explained Bednar.

“We found something on the top of (turns) 1 and 2 but in 3 and 4 we struggled tonight. I think the track was fairly similar to the heat races and it didn’t really rubber up anywhere. It was just dry and slick.”

In the IMCA Modified feature Keith Jack jumped out to the early lead over Ray McClure and Morgan. Morgan then picked off McClure on the second go-around while defending Bloomsburg winner David Stremme blasted into third by lap three. Stremme was still on the move and raced into second one lap later.

After a restart on lap seven the race for the lead got very heated as Jack, Morgan and Stremme went three-wide. As the trio completed the lap Morgan was not in front with Stremme hot on his heels.

The race was slowed again on lap 10 when Jacob McConnell spun in Turn 4 and when the actioned resumed Stremme worked the outside to power around Morgan for the lead.

Stremme was looking to become a repeat Bloomsburg winner but that notion ended with nine laps to go when he lost power and pulled out of the event.

Morgan was now back in front and for the remaining circuits he gradually pulled ahead and took a comfortable four car length margin of victory over Jack.

Eddie Sites, Brad Sites and Jared Spalding rounded out the front five.

SpeedSTR feature finish (20 laps): 1. Billy Pauch Jr., 2. Mike Bednar, 3. Louden Reimert, 4. Dillon Steuer, 5. Tom Mayberry, 6. Tim Buckwalter, 7. Gary Wagner, 8. Doug Snyder, 9. Mark Manieri, 10. Scott Houdeshell, 11. Cale Zangli, 12. Dustin Morris, 13. Alex Bright, 14. Steve Buckwalter, 15. Rich Tobias

IMCA Modified feature finish (25 laps): 1. Rodney Morgan, 2. Keith Jack, 3. Eddie Sites, 4. Brad Sites, 5. Jared Spalding, 6. Tyler Stoddard, 7. Aaron Benjamin, 8. Jacob McConnell, 9. Ray McClure, 10. Jason Sullivan, 11. Robert Maynard, 12. David Stremme, 13. Jake Maynard, 14. Lance Garvey, 15. Shawn Bruce