Von Dohren & Umbenhauer Help To Confirm 358’s At Grandview Are “Must See” For Fans

Column By: RUSTY RHOADES / RPW – BECHTELSVILLE, PA – This past Saturday evening on “The Hill in Bechtelsville” as Grandview Speedway is affectionately nicknamed, when the modified feature came to a conclusion, it was one of those breathtaking performances across the board…from the green flag until the checkered, from the front row back to well deep into the starting grid.

It didn’t matter who you were rooting for or whether that driver won, lost, didn’t finish or didn’t even qualify. Practically the entire section I was in started applauding, just as the announcer was still trying to catch his breath in amazement while throwing praise on the performance at the same time. It was one of those moments where you are so happy to be a race fan, and even happier you were there to see that show.

I’m sure many of you have experienced this at your home track or at any track at least once or twice before in your lives. But here’s where I feel Grandview begins to separate itself from other modified facilities.

I’ve been in this same situation a dozen times in my life as a conservative estimate – and that’s just at Grandview! I can specifically remember several of those occasions to the point that I could give you a play-by-play of those races. I may be wrong, but I just don’t think that is a common occurrence for the same track and the same person, especially one that hasn’t even turned 38 yet. But regardless, here is just a small sample of the action, mostly focusing on just what happened at the front towards the finish after the first few sentences.

The amount of shuffling of the top five order in the last 20 laps or so of non-stop green flag racing, much of which they also spent dicing through lapped traffic, was just second to none and almost too much activity to decide where to fix your attention on!

This week, it was the all-time winningest driver in track history, Craig Von Dohren, reasserting himself as the same “CVD” capable of making a variety of power moves on restarts and in heavy traffic to return his legendary “1c” number back to a winner’s circle it knows so very well.
Craig started 12th, which is honestly closer to the front at this point of the year than I can remember in some time, as a product of his pedestrian 4th place standing in the points entering the night – and yes, I did say that. It is a rare thing to see CVD not occupying a top 3 Grandview modified points position almost halfway through the calendar season. The combination of unreliable weather and a couple weeks where they were “just off a touch”, as Craig stated in victory lane, have delayed that usual ascension to the top just a bit. But Saturday night’s performance should be all anyone needs to realize he is as good as ever.

Von Dohren almost immediately inserted himself into the top eight after a couple early yellows, and was up to 4th at the halfway point. He moved into 3rd over Doug Manmiller shortly after, and then used a magnificent low line hook up through turn 3 to rocket under both Danny Erb and Jared Umbenhauer out of turn 4 and pull off the 3rd to 1st move of the race that eventually put the 103rd notch in his Grandview win column. It’s not a stretch in viewing this as that typical icebreaker in another midsummer run of dominance heading towards the high dollar Forest Rogers Memorial that the legendary hotshoe loves lifting the oversized check over his head for in victory lane.

Another encouraging and highly entertaining example of the nonstop action frequently displayed at Grandview was exhibited by runner-up Jared Umbenhauer. Just last week, in an instant he went from running a solid 2nd and turning around a snakebitten season into barely escaping his 19 ride after a huge collision with a spunout back marker caused the car to roll over and leak fuel before quickly erupting into a fiery, unstoppable blaze just seconds after his exit. The extensive damage added insult to injury for the Richland resident and team, having already blown through 2 motors on the year prior to this very scary incident.

Umbenhauer was relegated to putting his “1H” weekly Big Diamond machine into double duty service as a result, but that didn’t phase Jared and his crew, as he won his heat and earned the 5th starting spot for the feature. The young talent used every bit of the high side of the Bechtelsville bullring in impressive fashion, moving through the top 5 during the long green flag run. A precise threading of the needle between Manmiller and a lapped car in turn 2 at halfway advanced him to 2nd, and a few laps later he rode the cushion and even more into the lead over Erb.

Umbenhauer’s commitment to the high side was an absolute pleasure to watch, and even after a bobble in turn 3 led to Von Dohrens bullrush from 3rd to the lead, Jared had no interest in conceding victory, reasserting his high flying hook up over the next 3 laps of spectacular side by side battling with his close friend before Craig finally solidified his place on the point.
Saturday night was nothing short of breathtaking. It was also just more proof from my perspective that, in terms of putting out consistently exciting weekly modified shows, you’re really hard pressed to match the ⅓ mile bullring I’m fortunate enough to be able to call my home track.The big guns may get to Victory Lane regularly just like your home track and so many others, but how they arrive there at Grandview is anything but that.