RPW Exclusive: Whaley & Godown Collect “Three For All” Wins At Bridgeport

Column By: NICK FILLMAN / RPW – SWEDESBORO, NJ – After a 24 hour postponement due to forecasted rains for the area, the gates to the Bridgeport Speedway 3/8ths mile oval opened with plenty of sunshine and plenty of talent, as the fourth annual Three For All was on the card featuring the Super Late Models, 358 Small Block Modifieds, and the USAC East Coast 360 Sprint cars.

Fourteen super late models would enter the pit area for competition on Wednesday evening and with only one of the previous three winners in the field, the door would be left open for a potential new winner to add to the list.

Two heat races would be contested for the cars on hand and the wins would go to Amanda Whaley and Ricky Elliott sending the top four from each heat race to the redraw.

Following the feature redraw Ross Robinson and Kyle Hardy would share the front row for the 25 lap event which would get off to a very bumpy start with cautions riddling the opening seven laps of the feature event, plaguing early front runner Kyle Hardy sending him pit side.

Finally on lap seven the feature would get going with early race leader Austin Hubbard showing the way to the restart.

Quickly, Whaley would jump to the high side which up until that point had not been used by the majority of the field. Whaley quickly made her way through the field and eventually catching and passing leader Austin Hubbard on lap 12.

For the rest of the feature event Whaley would lead the way with Hubbard glued to the back deck-lid of the leader Whaley giving everything he could to try and make the pass for the lead once again.

Finally on the last lap it looked like that door had opened as Whaley spun the tires through the middle of turns three and four and left the door open on the bottom for Hubbard to draw along side of Whaley in a drag race to the finish line concluding with Whaley scoring the victory. Austin Hubbard, Ross Robinson, Mark Pettyjohn, and Bryan Bernheisel would round out the top five.

Also on the card were the 358 small block modifieds set for a 25 lap feature event, with a solid field of 20 cars with a mixed variety of drivers from multiple speedways attending the event.

Two heat races would kick off the action for the small blocks with Billy Pauch Sr and Ryan Godown grabbing the heat race wins. A redraw for the top five from each heat would see the two heat race winners starting at both ends of the draw as Godown would end up pulling the three pill, and Pauch Sr drawing tenth.

From the drop of the green flag Ryan Godown made his move to the inside of Rocco Infante and Roger Manning and take the lead going down the back stretch on lap one. From that point forward nobody would have anything for Godown as he would stretch his lead out in the non stop 25 lap feature event to over a straightaway by the time the checkered flag flew.

The racing behind Godown however was very entertaining with two time 3/8ths mile winner Jeff Strunk and current Grandview Speedway points leader Mike Gular dueling side by side for the majority of the event with Strunk winning out and Gular fading back to fourth after Billy Pauch Sr methodically worked his way through the field to end up in the third position following a last lap, last corner pass of Gular coming to the checkered flag.

Jeff Strunk would end up second over Billy Pauch Sr, Mike Gular, and Wade Hendrickson rounding out the top five.

The mixed bag of drivers would see sportsman driver Cale Ross and his #112 sportsman entry try his hand against the small blocks and would be rewarded with a 7th place finish.

Ryan Anderson made a return to racing following a massive crash at last years King of the Big Blocks event at the Bridgeport Speedway and would wind up with an 8th place effort.

Super Late Model Feature: 4 Amanda Whaley, 11 Austin Hubbard, 7 Ross Robinson, 8 Mark Pettyjohn, 119 Bryan Bernheisel, 85 Ricky Elliott, 15 Scott Wilson, 46 Dan Green, 4s Danny Snyder, 3v Kyle Hardy, 0 Larry Baer, 000 Matt Nailor,, 21m Matt Murphy, 0f1 Colby Frye,

358 Modified Feature: 26 Ryan Godown, 126 Jeff Strunk, 1 Billy Pauch Sr, 2a Mike Gular, 51m Wade Hendrickson, 19 Rocco Infante, 112 Cale Ross, 27 Ryan Anderson, 58 Loudon Reimert, 4b Clay Butler, 7 Chris Grbac, 61 Justin Grim, 13 Steve Davis, 34h Scott Hulmes, 6 Matt Stangle, 0 Neal Williams, 304 Rich Wegner Jr, 14 Brad Roberts, 79 Blaine Bracelin.