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SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST: Reese Nowotarski Survives a Marathon for First URC Win at BAPS

Written by Bert Wojcik
Photo : Tim Basehore
As teams rolled into the Baps Motor Speedway for the first time since April 27th they were greeted with blazing sunshine and high humidity. As hot laps grew closer so did the clouds. A pop up storm dumped for about 15 minutes nearly took all the air out of the crews and teams that's been clamoring to be back racing since April. But a fantastic effort by the entire track crew at Baps to bring the track back around for a great surface. While it felt like a marathon feature. One driver stood tall as Leesport,PA Reese Nowotarski became the 290th different winner in the 76 year history of the United Racing Club.
Feature action got underway with Brett Wanner and Tylor Rutherford on the front row. The green wouldn't stay out long as Wanner would spin in turns 3 and 4 bringing out the first yellow. That would move Nowotarski to the front row alongside Rutherford. On the start it was Nowotarski taking the lead but the yellow would immediately return as Cole Knopp would spin in turn 2 and make hard contact with the wall bringing an end to his night.
We would finally complete a lap on the next restart as Nowotarski would take the advantage over Rutherford. The green wouldn't stay out long as Fred Kennedy would spin out in turn 3 and bring the yellow back out. Green would return with Nowotarski taking the advantage. But the yellow laundry would fly again on lap 7 with Jon Brennfleck spinning and hard contact with the wall in turn 4 bringing an end to his evening. That would trigger an open red.
After the open red it would be single file restarts. On the restart Kyle Smith would try to attempt to pass Rutherford on the inside of the cone. Under URC rules he would be penalized next stoppage of the race. It wouldn't take long as Rutherford would find himself jumping the cushion and flipping in turns 1 and 2 on lap 9. He would be ok. Smith would be docked 2 spots. Next yellow would come out as Kennedy would spin again. He would park it for the night.
Finally got some laps together with Nowotarski running away and getting into lap traffic and mastering it beautifully. Behind him Smith and JT Ferry would have a great battle for the 2nd spot with Ken Meisner finding his way into this battle. But then the caution would come out once again with Jake Gallowy spinning in turn 3 on lap 18. The cautions would not be done as Robbie Stillwaggon would spin on lap 23 setting up a green white checkered finish.
Nowotarski would get the jump with Ferry and Smith in tow. Smith would seem to lose his breaks and get passed for 3rd by Meisner, But it was all Nowotarski as he would dominate the feature leading all 25 laps for his first career 360 sprint car win.
“Its awesome to to get the first sprint car win off the bucket list.”Nowotarski said after the race. “ I have plenty of 410 starts here so i've felt really comfortable coming here. I knew we would be good out of the box and having Ryan Smith and crew doing an amazing job the last month or so we really been clicking.”
Josh Weller got the York Excavating hard charger coming from 16th to 4th and Derek Locke would round out the top 5.
Next URC race will be Wednesday July 3rd at the Port Royal Speedway apart of Pennsylvania Speedweek.
Results for 6/22/2024 at BAPS Motor Speedway - York Haven, PA
URC 360 Winged Sprint Cars 27 Entries
A Feature 1 8 Laps

1. 10X-Reese Nowotarski[3]; 2. 18J-JT Ferry[4]; 3. 4-Ken Meisner[9]; 4. 63-Josh Weller[16]; 5. 77-Derek Locke[6]; 6. 32-Kyle Smith[5]; 7. 11B-Bryn Gohn[13]; 8. 6-Mike Bittinger[12]; 9. 11H-Hayden Miller[19]; 10. 47-Adam Carberry[10]; 11. 99-Jonathan Swift[11]; 12. 669-Brandon McGough[8]; 13. 17G-Devin Gundrum[21]; 14. 19T-Jacob Galloway[15]; 15. 89-Robbie Stillwaggon[7]; 16. 22R-Ron Helmick[17]; 17. (DNF) 4BC-Brandon Reiblich[20]; 18. (DNF) 74-Vance Berry[24]; 19. (DNF) 56-Fred Kennedy[18]; 20. (DNF) 19R-Tylar Rutherford[2]; 21. (DNF) 51-Jon Brennfleck[22]; 22. (DNF) 48C-Mark Connoly[23]; 23. (DNF) 55W-Randy Wilbert[14]; 24. (DNF) 6K-Cole Knopp[25]; 25. (DNF) 54-Brett Wanner[1]; 26. (DNS) 7-Tyler Ross
   Specialty Rigging Heat 1 8 Laps
2. 54-Brett Wanner[1]; 2. 18J-JT Ferry[2]; 3. 77-Derek Locke[3]; 4. 47-Adam Carberry[5]; 5. 11B-Bryn Gohn[8]; 6. 63-Josh Weller[7]; 7. 11H-Hayden Miller[6]; 8. 51-Jon Brennfleck[4]; 9. 6-Mike Bittinger[9]
   Specialty Rigging Heat 2 8 Laps
3. 10X-Reese Nowotarski[2]; 2. 19R-Tylar Rutherford[1]; 3. 669-Brandon McGough[5]; 4. 99-Jonathan Swift[7]; 5. 55W-Randy Wilbert[3]; 6. 22R-Ron Helmick[6]; 7. 4BC-Brandon Reiblich[8]; 8. (DNF) 48C-Mark Connoly[9]; 9. (DNF) 10-Joe Kata[4]
   Specialty Rigging Heat 3 8 Laps
4. 89-Robbie Stillwaggon[4]; 2. 32-Kyle Smith[1]; 3. 4-Ken Meisner[3]; 4. 6K-Cole Knopp[8]; 5. 19T-Jacob Galloway[6]; 6. 56-Fred Kennedy[2]; 7. 17G-Devin Gundrum[5]; 8. 7-Tyler Ross[7]; 9. 74-Vance Berry[9]

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