JACKSONVILLE, IL (September 15, 2023) Entering the weekend with momentum after a local 410 Sprint Car victory last Friday at the very place, Paul Nienhiser was chomping at the bit to score back-to-back victories with the MOWA Sprints in the annual running of the “Carolyn Schuh Memorial”. The Chapin, Illinois did exactly that by sweeping the night with a heat race victory and a $4,000 A-Main victory.
Nienhiser advanced forward from his third starting spot in heat race competition to bag the win over Josh Schneiderman and Preston Perlmutter, thus advancing into the nightly feature redraw, where he found the second-starting spot.
At the drop of the green in the 25-Lap affair, Nienhiser pounced from his second-starting spot to the bottom groove of the track in turn one, where he pulled a crossover mood on race pole sitter Zach Hampton. Nienhiser took early command of the field and quickly found lapped traffic. Hampton settled into the second spot, where he battled with Will Armitage who muscled around the top-side of the ¼-mile bullring and abruptly found himself at the heels of the #9X of Nienhiser.
A lengthy red-flag period for drivers Cory Bruns, Steven Russell and Van Gurley slowed the field with five laps remaining. Nienhiser continued to show the way but knew he had hard charging competitors in the likes of Armitage, Hampton and Shelby Bosie in tow.
Bringing the field back to life with only five laps left, Nienhiser never looked back as we went on to win his second straight “Carolyn Schuh Memorial” over Zach Hampton who made a late race pass around WIll Armitage, who finished third ahead of Shelby Bosie and Jake Blackhurst.
The Morrow Brothers Ford MOWA Sprint Cars now head north to Spoon River Speedway for the 36th-Annual Tom Knowles Memorial for the penultimate event of the 2023 season.
The finish:
1. 9X-Paul Nienhiser, 2. 35-Zach Hampton, 3. 7A-WIll Armitage, 4. 3B-Shelby Bosie, 5. 96-Jake Blackhurst, 6. 73-Scotty Thiel, 7. 22-Riley Goodno, 8. 52F-Logan Faucon, 9. 31-Zach Daum, 10. 42-Preston Perlmutter, 11. 9-Tyler Duff, 12. 37-Bryce Norris, 13. 49-Josh Schneiderman, 14. 29-Brayton Lynch, 15. 13 – Van Gurley, Jr. 16. 1JR-Steven Russell, 17. 8-Cory Bruns, 18. 83B-Jeff Beasley, 19. 10S-Jeremy Standridge, 20. 71M-Paul May, 21. 47-Korey Weyant, 22. 3N-Jake Neuman