Michael Norris shines again during Firecracker 100 weekend at Lernerville

The “Crusher Kid” did it again.

A year after thrilling the hometown Lernerville Speedway fans with an upset victory over the World of Outlaws, Michael Norris provided an encore Friday night by winning the 30-lap $6,000-to-win preliminary feature in Night 1 of the Firecracker 100 weekend.

Norris, a 2010 Knoch grad, passed Mason Zeigler for the lead on Lap 3 and navigated a half-dozen restarts to earn his second consecutive Friday night preliminary victory during the Firecracker weekend.

“It’s still kind of surreal, to be honest,” Norris said. “It doesn’t feel real totally. I didn’t honestly think we could do it again, especially with a new car (owned by Todd Cerenzia). The car was just on a rail all night. The track was a little treacherous, but we missed the holes when we needed to, and here we are.”

Michael Norris takes his second career Preliminary night win at the Firecracker! #CrushedIt pic.twitter.com/07U0MZnCTj

— Lernerville Speedway (@Lernerville) June 22, 2019

Zeigler, a Chalk Hill resident, settled for second, and current World of Outlaws points leader Brandon Sheppard came from the 12th starting spot to finish third. Josh Richards finished fourth, and Darrell Lanigan rounded out the top five. Current Lernerville points leader Kenny Schaltenbrand was 12th.

The win puts Norris on the pole for the first heat race for Saturday’s Firecracker 100. If he wins the heat, he is guaranteed one of the top four spots in the 100-lap finale.

“Hopefully we can capitalize on it,” Norris said. “(Saturday) is a whole new ballgame. In the 100-lapper, the track will be a lot slicker. I think we have a balanced car. We’ll have to put it back together tonight, because I’m sure it has some battle scars underneath it, but I think we’ll be OK.”

New car, same result @TheCrusherKid beats the @WoOLateModels for the second straight year in #Firecracker100 prelim action! ??? https://t.co/TMTRw1yE91

— Lernerville Speedway (@Lernerville) June 22, 2019

Norris started third but moved to second on the first lap and slid past Zeigler on Lap 3. From there, he set sail until Jonathan Davenport stopped with a flat tire on Lap 11. On the ensuing restart, Rick Eckert spun and collected Chub Frank and Blake Spencer, causing another caution.

Pole sitter Boom Briggs slowed on Lap 14 for another yellow. Fast qualifier Tyler Erb worked his way into second on the following restart but had a tire go flat a lap later, bringing out another yellow.

Restart after restart, Norris kept fending off challenges from Zeigler, and Lanigan. Zeigler briefly got by on Lap 18. However, Norris retook the lead and held on from there.

“It’s frustrating,” Norris said of all the restarts. “It kind of messes your groove up, because you have to drive defensively on restarts so they don’t pull sliders on you. It takes a while to get your groove going and get in a rhythm. I’d rather go green-to-checkered because I have a tendency to lose on restarts, but it all worked out tonight.”

Indiana resident Greg Satterlee did a soft barrel roll in Turn 4 on Lap 26. He got out of the car and said he was OK. He also said he expects to return to action Saturday.

Satterlee’s flip set up one last restart for Norris. He had used the top groove all night and ripped the cushion one more time on the final restart to pull away from Zeigler.

Sheppard, who has won eight of 15 Outlaws races this year, patiently worked the bottom of the track and picked off cars one by one. He was one of the biggest movers in the field.

“All in all, I’m happy with coming from 12th to third,” Sheppard said. “We put ourselves behind in qualifying, and to come back from that was a good deal. We ended up getting ourselves a good starting spot for a heat race tomorrow.”

Sheppard expects a much slicker surface Saturday after navigating a rougher track because of the large amount of rainfall throughout the week in Buffalo Township. He’ll be chasing his first Firecracker 100 trophy.

“With the track being a little rough, I don’t know if we saw who the fast cars are going to be in a 100 laps (Saturday),” Sheppard said. “I know that (Zeigler), (Norris) and us will probably be up front, but there’s some other guys that are better in the slick conditions that will be there, too. Hats off to the track crew. We’ve had so many rainouts this year. We were here last night, and it was raining so hard and I didn’t know how they’d get it in, but it was dry today somehow.”

Briggs, Zeigler, Norris and Lanigan earned heat race wins. Shane Clanton and Dale McDowell won the last-chance qualifiers.

Erb was fastest of the 46-car field in qualifying with a time of 17.087 seconds. Michael Norris was second-fastest at 17.258.

In the RUSH crate late models, Wellsville, N.Y., native Jeremy Wonderling won the dash, which puts him on the pole for Saturday’s 50-lap, $10,000-to-win Bill Emig Memorial. Wonderling, Kyle Lukon, Max Blair, Michael Duritsky Jr., and John Waters won heat races. David Pangrazio set fast time of the 53 entries at 17.935.