Empire Series opener to Ballard and Pinkerous

The Empire All Star and Junior Slingshot tour was restarted in 2020 and the first event was held this past weekend at Glen Ridge Motorsports Park.

Danny Ballard held on Brett Putnam in a thrilling feature event in which the two ran side by side for almost the whole race. The red flag came out for the 621 of Tyler Vadney who ended up on his side at the top of turns three and four. This set up a one lap dash to settle it. Ballard didn’t waiver however as he picked up his second win of the year at the speedway. Putnam would finish in second ahead of last week’s winner Nick Auspelmyer, Tavien Blowers, and Darryn Fallis completed the top five.

In the Junior Slingshots, it was all Brock Pinkerous. “Bam Bam” led the event wire to wire and picked up his first win of 2020. A great battle for second between Frank Twing Jr and Lucas Duncan allowed Pinkerous to drive away.Twing fell one spot short of getting three in a row, while Duncan, Matt Backus & Sloan Cherko rounded out the top five.

Tavien Blowers did enjoy some success in the event on Friday night at Afton Motorsports Park. Blowers took the win over Julia Renwick and Gordon Smith.

Liam Jackson was the Junior Slingshot winner at Afton.