"Hollywood" Mike Knight Inherits Eckl Memorial E Smethport PA The Northern Tier Inc. ULMS Late Models made the annual pre county fair, Thursday night trip to McKean County Raceway for the 5th annual Stephanie Eckl Memorial. Ripley, New York's, Mike Knight found himself in victory lane and $2020 richer! Knight capitalize on the lap 29 incident between the top two running cars of Chad Valone and Gregg Satterlee and raced his way into victory to capture his first ever ULMS win and his first ever at McKean County Raceway as well. Thirty dirt late models from New York, Pennsylvania and Quebec were on hand for the Eckl Memorial, plus with a guaranteed starting spot up for grabs for the season ending Priority Care RaceFAN 50 that will be held at end of the year. Gregg Satterlee and Chad Valone led the twenty-five car field to John Powell's green go flag. With Valone using the outside line to lead lap one of Satterlee. Valone and Satterlee would go door to door lap after lap. With five down, it was Valone, Satterlee still one - two with Knight, ULMS point leader Bob Close and Greg Oakes in fifth. Lap eight would see the yellow lights come on for fourth running, Close who developed a flat tire and slid off turn one. Close would go pit side for some new rubber. Oakes would now be in fourth with Dave Hess Jr now up to fifth. With the green back out again it was the Valone and Satterlee show again as both drivers went at it door to door swapping the lead time after time but with the Valone Ford Dealership #2v machine eeking out Satterlee's #22 Rocket at the scoring stripe. Finally on lap 12, Satterlee would get credited for leading a lap but it was only momentarily as Valone high groove was still proving to be the fast way around. At the halfway point it was Valone, Satterlee, Knight, Hess and Boom Briggs now in fifth from his twelfth place starting spot. Scott Johnson was sixth followed by eighteenth starting Matt Lux, Chub Frank, Bump Hedman, Ron Davies and Rob Blair rounded out the top ten. The yellow laps would come flashing again on lap eighteen for Jeremy Ohl who came to a stop in turn four after a spin. With the event pass halfway, it was a single file restart with Valone still leading Satterlee who was going for his third win of the year. Both cars would charge down the front stretch again and with ten to go it was Valone, Satterlee, Knight, Hess and Briggs still in fifth. Boom would take fourth over from Hess on lap 24, but by lap twenty six it was Hess back in fourth behind the lead trio of Valone, Satterlee and Knight. Scott Johnson was now the fifth place car and Chub Frank was making a late run for the top five as Briggs slid back to seventh. As this was going on, Valone and Satterlee was now getting into lap traffic as they both were slicing and dicing for the win. As the two came down the front stretch to take the white flag, both cars entered turn one in the low groove while it appeared Satterlee went into turn one and thru the infield and resulted into making contact with Valone resulting in Valone spinning out and bringing out the yellow with one to go. MCR flagman and ULMS officials placed Satterlee to the rear for "overaggressive" driving and Valone disappointingly would go to the tail as well for being the yellow flag. Both drivers would pull off the racing surface setting up a one lap dash to the checkers and lord behold, "Hollywood" Mike Knight was now the new leader with Hess, Johnson, Chub Frank and Boom Briggs now the new top five. "Hollywood" didn't waste anytime and set sail and kept enough distance between himself and Hess. "Chubzilla" would make a bonsai move to go from fourth to third on the outside and at the finish it was "Hollywood" Mike Knight capturing the 5th annual Stephanie Eckl Memorial and the guaranteed starting spot for the 4th Annual Priority Care RaceFAN 50 in September. Hess would come home second, while Chub Frank found himself third ahead of Scott Johnson and Boom Briggs. Matt Lux came home sixth from his eighteenth starting spot. Greg Oakes was seventh followed by Rob Blair, twenty-second starting Jason Dupont and Ron Davies came home tenth. Qualifying heat winners were Close, Knight, Blair and Briggs while Dick Barton and Matt Lux won the two consolation events. In the second consolation, Brady Wonderling took a wild flip down the backstretch after making contact with two other cars. The former Tim McCreadie machine that was recently purchased was destroyed in the series of rolls, but thankfully, Brady walked away from the crash. The Northern Tier Inc ULMS Late Models will be back in action on Sunday at Tri City Speedway as they will compete for $3000 and a guaranteed starting spot for the September 5, World of Outlaw late model event. The August 14th event at Arcade International Raceway has been cancelled by track and series officials. The ULMS Late Models will be competing next Saturday night at Pittsburgh PA Motor Speedway in the triple sanctioned "Shockwave F2" event featuring the UFO / ULMS and UMP DirtCAR series. RESULTS: DNQ: Bob McMillen, Todd Baumgardner, Dutch Davies, Brady Wonderling, Andy Kania, Tim Steis, Doug Eck Northern Tier Inc Heat #1 Close Racing Supply-GRT Race Cars Heat #2 Lias Tire - American Racer Tire Heat #3 Hoosier Tire - Mid Atlantic Heat #4 Keizer Aluminum Wheels / Cousins Designs Bmain#1 BRC Race Cars - BigShot Performance Bmain #2 American Racer Tire Award: Mike Knight
Knight’s dirt Late Model operation carries sponsorship from Arrowhead Wine Cellars, Mobilia Fruit Farm, Ottawaya’s Auto Body, Knight Farms, Corry Chrysler, Jay’s Auto Wrecking, Jim’s Parts Plus, RJB Construction, Chess a’ Pizza, NYPenn Surveying, TeCulver Contracting, Genesis Shocks, Crager Race Engines, Slavic Custom Racing Shirts, Farr MotorSports, MWB Web Designs and American Racing Tires. More information on Mike Knight will be available soon on his completely redesigned website, www.mikeknight9k.com. The new website is expected to be up-and-running in the next week. For more information on Mike Knight, visit www.mikeknight9k.com.
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