Jeff Halligan Back in Victory Lane for Second Time in 2022

Jeff Halligan made the most of his final chance to dial in the Risser Motorsports / TheTreeCenter.com / Victory Auto of Lewistown / EMM Sales & Service / Jake’s Golf Carts / Pine Hill Trailers / Keystone Ag Spraying, No.45 at Port Royal Speedway prior to the upcoming World of Outlaws event.

Saturday night the Ephrata, PA wheelman powered to a convincing heat race win by five seconds over the second place car, then went on to come from the 6th starting spot in the A-main to grab the lead on a late restart and take the victory by 1.6 seconds over Mike Wagner.

July 9:  Port Royal Speedway / Port Royal, PA

     [24 cars, Heat 1st (1), A-main 1st (6)]

All cars would qualify from the three 8-lap heat races, but only the top three finishers would be handicapped to start the feature event.  Halligan drew the pole for the first heat, and it was never a contest.  He drove away from the start and pulled away to a straightaway lead during the nonstop event.

The handicapping system, based on each driver’s points average in the most recent four races, placed Halligan outside row three for the night’s finale.  In the early going of the 25-lap feature, it appeared his No.45 might not be quite as good as it had been earlier in the night.  

Halligan initially settled into the 5th position and had to watch the battle in front of him for the top spots.  By lap six he found his rhythm and moved into the 4th spot, still watching from the outside at the war being waged at the front among Derek Hauk, Dylan Cisney, and Ryan Timms.

As the race entered the final ten laps, Halligan cleared a lapped car, got clean air on his nose and set his sights on the top trio.  With eight laps remaining, the caution lights flashed on for Tyler Walton and at the same time, Ryan Timms blew a right rear tire. 

The field came to the green for the restart with Cisney leading Hauck, Halligan, Logan Wagner and Mike Wagner.  Things got tight off turn two and down the backstretch as Halligan put a nose into 2nd using the low side, while Logan Wagner charged up the middle with Hauck up high.

Wagner and Hauck made contact, sending both spinning and ending the night for both drivers.  The second attempt to restart with eight laps remaining came to the green with Cisney leading Halligan and Mike Wagner.  Jeff had his sights set on the top spot and momentarily slid in front of the No.5 in turn four, but Cisney turned back under the No.45 and reclaimed the lead.  Mike Wagner took advantage of the moment and stole 2nd away from Halligan entering turn one.  

Halligan now sat several car lengths back in 3rd and the laps were winding down when misfortune struck for Cisney.  A blown left rear tire sent the leader hard into the third turn fence, ending his night.  

Jeff Halligan made the most of the second chance.  On the ensuing restart, Wagner went low into turn one while Halligan ripped the top side and built momentum.  As the pair reached turn three, Jeff  dove low under Wagner’s No.55 and came off turn four with the lead.  He never relinquished the lead and came home with his second victory of the season.

The win checked off a goal Halligan has had since he first strapped into a 410 sprint car three years ago:  win multiple races in a season.  As a result of the parity and high level of competition in Central Pennsylvania, it is a goal that is not easily attained.

“It was definitely a good night for us.  I’m pretty happy.  We’ve still got work to do here, but we’re in good shape.“, a smiling Halligan commented.

“We need to work on getting better at other places.  We’ve struggled most nights at Williams Grove this year, so we want to get some laps in there.  We had good runs at Lincoln during Speedweek, so we’ve made progress there, but we still have things to figure out to be consistently good there.  We need to keep putting in the work if we’re going to take our deal to the next level and be able to compete with the big dogs.“

Up Next

With Port Royal hosting motorcycle racing this weekend, it’s an ideal weekend for the team to work on improvements elsewhere.  Halligan and the Risser Motorsports team will venture to Williams Grove Speedway on Friday night July 15th and Lincoln Speedway the following night.  

The team had two successful outings at the Pigeon Hills oval during PA Speedweek.  Halligan will return with a lot of momentum, looking for his second career 410 sprint car win at the track.  His first came in his rookie 410 season back in 2019, almost exactly three years ago to the date this weekend.

Wednesday night July 20th Halligan and team will return to ‘The Speed Palace’ to face the World of Outlaws.

Season Stats

26 races, 2 wins, 9 top 5’s, 14 top 10’s, 19 top 15’s