Jeff Halligan Struggles on Tough Night at Port Royal

Jeff Halligan unloaded the Risser Motorsports No.45 at Port Royal Speedway Saturday night  feeling pretty good about his chances to grab his share of the $60,000 total purse on the line for the Living Legends Dream Race, and he had every reason to.

He was coming off a 6th place run there against the World of Outlaws just ten days before, plus he had two wins this season at the Juniata County half-mile in the Risser Motorsports / TheTreeCenter.com / Victory Auto of Lewistown / EMM Sales & Service / Jake’s Golf Carts / Pine Hill Trailers / Keystone Ag Spraying, entry.

July 30:  Living Legends Dream Race / Port Royal Speedway / Port Royal, PA

      [27 cars, Qualifying 17th, Heat 4th (6), A-main #1 16th (11), A-main #2 21st (16)]

The format for the 16th annual event took on a slightly new look for 2022.  The PA Speedweek time trial and heat race format would be used to set the lineup for the first of two twin 20-lap features.  The lineup for the second feature would be based on the finishing order of the first race but would use an inversion of either the top 4, 6 or 8 finishers in the first race.  The inversion pill would be drawn by the winner of the first feature.  

Halligan has been strong all season at Port Royal, but his qualifying lap left him 17th in the field of 27 cars.  He would have to make some moves in his heat race to begin working his way back toward the front of the starting field for the first feature.

Three 8-lap heat races were on the car, with the top six finishers from each transferring to the first feature.  The top two finishers would take part in a redraw to set their spot among the first three rows.

Halligan took the first step toward battling back from his qualifying deficit by advancing from his 6th starting spot in heat number two to finish 4th.  While it wasn’t a redraw spot, it did set him up to start 11th in the first feature.  From there he could hopefully climb his way into one of the inversion spots.

At the drop of the green on the first 20-lap A-main, Halligan didn’t have the car he needed to surge forward, so he settled into a rhythm, searched for a line that worked and waited for things to come to him.

It never materialized.  Instead, Halligan slipped back to 16th by the time the checkered fell on the first main event.  The Risser Motorsports crew used the ten minute break to make adjustments that would hopefully help Jeff rally in the second 20-lap main event.

This particular Saturday night just wasn’t coming together for Halligan and his team.  The changes didn’t help, and he fell a few more spots in the running order.  With seven laps remaining, Halligan retired from the race and was credited with 21st officially.

“Nothing is ever easy in this deal.  If you think you have it figured out, you don’t.”, Halligan said.

“We’ve been pretty consistent this year because we have a good baseline for our cars.  It just didn’t work tonight.  We’ll go over the car and make sure everything is good, but we just need to keep working hard and figure out how to make the right adjustments when we need to.“

Up Next

Jeff and the Risser Motorsports team will be aiming to return to form at Port Royal Speedway on Saturday night August 6th when ‘The Speed Palace’ hosts a regular show for 410 sprint cars, super late models and 305 sprint cars.

Season Stats

29 races, 2 wins, 9 top 5’s, 15 top 10’s, 20 top 15’s