When you drive for a low-budget team, such as Jeff Rine, $22,000 goes a long way. He took home that dollar amount when he won the super late model portion of the Keystone Cup at Bedford Speedway in Pennsylvania.
“This $22,000 win was our biggest win for sure,” Rine, 45, of Danville, Pennsylvania, said. “The money will help this team a lot. It’s huge for us — we’re a low budget team. No two-car hauler with an extra car and spare engines. We’re in a dually pickup hauling a 28-foot trailer.”
Rine had to beat an entry list of 39 late models. He set fast time, won a semi, ran second in the dash, and started on the outside pole for the feature. Rine grabbed the lead on the first lap and never looked back, leading all 60 laps of the race.
“I grew up racing on big half-milers, like Bedford, Selinsgrove [Speedway in Pennsylvania] and Port Royal Speedway [in Pennsylvania],” said Rine, who earns a living by building wings for sprint cars at his Wing Dynamics, despite not racing those cars. “The challenge of a big track starts with faster speeds. The late model has to be set up differently than for a shorter track. You have to be able to control the car when you are going into the corner, and you have to know how far you can go.”
Jeff Rine started racing late models in 1995. He has driven for Tim Elbin since 2005. Together, they have eight track championships. The Keystone Cup win marked Rine’s 37th victory at Bedford Speedway. He last won the Keystone Cup in 2017, when it paid $15,000.
“It was a great night, with plenty of high-fives after the race,” Rine said. “This win will help our program going into next season.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
