With the backing of our presenting sponsor R&R Racewear for the Northeast Championshiop, we kept a tally of all 410 sprint car finishes in the Northeast region beginning in late March. The region stretched from the weekly tracks in Western Ohio, such as Attica and Atomic, to the regular weekend venues in Central PA like Williams Grove, Port Royal and Lincoln.
The championship battle was waged between the Central Pennsylvania foes Greg Hodnett and Danny Dietrich. An uncountable amount of blood, sweat, and tears was spent over the seven month long race season that culminated on October 25th at the Lernerville Speedway.
When the dust settled on a chilly October night after a World of Outlaws trip to Port Royal, we had anticipated crowning a champion. It was simple, who had more points? Hodnett or Dietrich...simple, right? Greg Hodnett led Danny Dietrich by a measly 2 points heading into their finale with no one else in sight, but thanks to our sliding points scale system (*see note at bottom*) we were presented with a TIE!
That's right, after 7 grueling months of racing, traveling up and down the road, clipping, adjusting, bending, and fixing chassis and parts, we had a TIE! We here at TDN don't support ties (if we did, we would spend most of our time covering European soccer).
The only logical thing was to go to most wins over the span. Go figure, Hodnett and Dietrich managed to capture 15 victories apiece. That's alright, we'll just head on down the line to number of max point wins (33+ cars). WRONG. They each had three. After a quick shimmy over to the third tiebreaking procedure, we found that Greg Hodnett topped Danny Dietrich with 15 runner up finishes to top Dietrich's nine.
Greg Hodnett, we hereby crown you the 2015 TDN Northeast Sprint Car Champion. Your unbelievable season hasn't gone without notice. On top of the trophies and purse monies that you've collected, we have a beautiful plaque to present to you down at The Dirt Track at Charlotte this weekend on behalf of all of us here at The Dirt Network and our partners at R&R Racewear.
Here is our top 5 over the entire Northeast. In the following weeks as time allows it, we will be dedicating individual posts to the top Central PA, Western PA, Ohio, independent, and World of Outlaw series drivers in our points standings. A full field rundown from 1st to 138th can be found here: Full Northeast Sprint Car Chamionship standings
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| 2015 Northeast Sprint Car Champion Greg Hodnett |
1. Greg Hodnett - 118 points
The Thomasville, PA driver lays claim to the inaugural TDN Northeast Sprintcar championship presented by R&R Racewear. His standout year with Heffner Racing will not be soon forgotten. His season included 15 wins counting within the region, three of which were against field of 33 or more.
2. Danny Dietrich - 118 points
Dietrich made his hometown of Gettysburg, PA proud as he laid down the best year of his career. Coming up just one spot short (literally) of the championship doesn't take away from the extremely successful season he had that included 15 wins.
3. Dale Blaney - 98 points
The TDN-proclaimed "King of the All Stars" did his thing once again this season. We can argue whether or not it's been a career year until we're blue in the face, but it's one that most drivers would kill to have. 12 wins within the region for Blaney in 2015.
4. Brian Montieth - 81 points
The Phoenixville, PA native is simply known as "The Edge", and if you'd see him on a Saturday night at Lincoln you'd immediately understand why. Montieth got off to a blazing hot start on the season and finished with nine wins.
5. Stevie Smith - 64 points
The Black Bandit drove another limited schedule for Fred Rahmer and Co., but you'd hardly know it. An impressive 2015 season was highlighted by $50,000 National Open win and PA Speedweek championship.
***Note: Our sliding points scale shifts based on the car count each night.
23 cars or less - Win(3), 2nd(2), 3rd(1)
24-32 cars - Win(4), 2nd(3), 3rd(2), 4th(1)
33+ cars - Win(5), 2nd(4), 3rd(3), 4th(2), 5th(1)
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