By Bert Wojcik
Photo: Jesse Carberry
Experience over youth showed itself at the Big Diamond Speedway on Friday night as “ Big Shoots” Josh Weller earned his first URC feature win of 2023 with his first trip to victory lane at Big Diamond since 2018. Weller is now tied with Brian Seidel for 16th all time in United Racing Club victories with 22.
19 cars signed into the 3/8th mile Schuylkill county oval. All 19 cars started the initial green of the feature. Ryan Stillwaggon would clip the yuke tire in between turns one and two. That would bring out the initial yellow but the red would directly follow as Kyle Smith clipped Brandon McGough’s left rear and got turned upside down. Smith was alright but both Smith and Stillwaggon would be unable to continue.
A complete restart would be called. As Resse Nowotarski for the second week in a row would sit on pole and Weller would lead the field to green. Nowotarski would lead the first lap. But it wouldn’t last long. Weller would get around Nowotarski for the lead and run the top side to get away from the young Leesport driver. “ That first start coming back certainly helped us.” Weller said in victory lane. “ I found that I could roll the top a little bit better.than what I had before. Resse will be good but he still has some learning to do yet.” Weller would work the top side around lap traffic as the 25 lap feature would go flag to flag to the end. “ Talking with some of the modified guys saying that it’s one lane around here (Big Diamond), I think we proved them wrong tonight.” Weller added.
The racing behind Weller was tremendous though. Nowotarski had company from a returning Tyler Resser from nearby Orwigsburg. who made his first sprint car start of the year in the Bob Lillick owned 7 car. “ I got the call last night and thanks to my buddy Kyle (Reinhardt) for vouching me to Bob to put his confidence in me.” Resser said. “ I like passing cars. We had a rough pill draw and had some help in the feature to make the redraw. Which was a stretch for us to make the feature I thought.” Resser would make a charge around Nowotarski for the 2nd spot and try to pull in Weller with the help of lap traffic.
“Lap cars were hard to navigate.” Resser said. “We pulled Weller in and we got close but he pulled away. It’s cool to run second, it's my best finish in a while so I'm thankful for the opportunity.”
Nowotarski would try to track Resser down towards the end of the race. But the experience for the young driver in only a handful of 360 stars is valuable. “I've been lucky to get a good spot upfront. But I get beat by experience.” Nowotarski said. “ It was tough to get around lap cars. Resser got held up by a lap car. I went to the top and I was surprised by how much grip was up there. I lost momentum a few times but it is what it is and we'll see how the rest of the season plays out.”
Nowotarski would settle for the third spot. Tyler Walton who looked very good throughout the night finished 4th. Robbie Stillwaggon would continue to show why Big Diamond is one of his best tracks with a top 5 finish.
The United Racing Club takes the next two weeks off before heading back in action Saturday June 3rd at the Selinsgrove Speedway. All Times and information will be posted on URC socials in the coming days.
Media Results for 5/19/2023 at Big Diamond Speedway - Minersville, PA
URC 360 Winged Sprint Cars 19 Entries
A Feature 1 25 Laps
- 63-Josh Weller[2]; 2. 7-Tyler Reeser[3]; 3. 10X-Reese Nowotarski[1]; 4. 14T-Tyler Walton[4]; 5. 89-Robbie Stillwaggon[6]; 6. 10-Joe Kata[8]; 7. 47-Adam Carberry[5]; 8. 11H-Hayden Miller[7]; 9. 35-Jason Shultz[9]; 10. 669-Brandon McGough[11]; 11. 47K-Kyle Drum[12]; 12. 4-Ken Meisner[14]; 13. 33-Derek Hauck[16]; 14. 03-Matthew Swift[10]; 15. 3Z-Johnny Smith[19]; 16. 5Z-Zack Burd[17]; 17. 17G-Devin Gundrum[18]; 18. 32-Kyle Smith[13]; 19. 11-Ryan Stillwaggon[15]
Heat 1 10 Laps
- 47-Adam Carberry[1]; 2. 10X-Reese Nowotarski[2]; 3. 7-Tyler Reeser[10]; 4. 11H-Hayden Miller[6]; 5. 35-Jason Shultz[4]; 6. 669-Brandon McGough[8]; 7. 32-Kyle Smith[3]; 8. 11-Ryan Stillwaggon[9]; 9. 5Z-Zack Burd[7]; 10. 3Z-Johnny Smith[5]
Heat 2 10 Laps
- 14T-Tyler Walton[6]; 2. 63-Josh Weller[2]; 3. 89-Robbie Stillwaggon[7]; 4. 10-Joe Kata[9]; 5. 03-Matthew Swift[1]; 6. 47K-Kyle Drum[3]; 7. 4-Ken Meisner[5]; 8. 33-Derek Hauck[4]; 9. 17G-Devin Gundrum[8]
- Robert Wojcik on May 20, 2023
- Article Date: 5/20/2023 by Bert Wojcik