Late model sportsman driver Spike Moore (22) rode the outside to avoid a spinning Ron Fink (1) and get by Harry Shipe. (00). The move led to the win during the Keystone Cup weekend at Bedford Speedway in Pennsylvania. It was another victory for Greg “Spike” Moore and his car owner Ryan Sager, an unlikely pairing that has generated success.
After three blown engines in his own car, Moore teamed up with archrival Sager.
“People couldn’t believe that Ryan and I could get along,” Moore, of Defiance, Pennsylvania, said. “They couldn’t get over that Ryan would let me drive his car. We had the biggest rivalry ever. He hurt his back and I had no more engines. The opportunity to unite was mutually beneficial.”
Mutually beneficial indeed. In Sager’s car, Moore has won nine times in 12 races he has competed in. Moore’s quick to credit his team for the success.
“We won the track championship at Hesston Speedway [in Pennsylvania] this year — but we could have lost it on the second-to-the-last race when we blew a motor on the first lap of our heat race,” said Moore. “Ryan’s shop was 15 minutes away. So, we piled four guys into the enclosed trailer and unbolted the motor in route to Ryan’s shop. We changed motors, and finished bolting in the new one on the way back to the track. When we arrived, we had one minute to make the back of the field. I was strapped in with the engine running. I drove right out of the trailer as the trailer stopped, and then right onto the track.”
At Bedford Speedway, Spike Moore ran the 60-lap super late model race prior to the late model sportsman feature, finishing 13th. The 20-lap sportsman feature had only one caution, which nearly collected Moore, when Ron Fink spun.
“On the restart, we jumped into the lead and put some distance between us and the field,” Moore said. “When we took the white flag, I expected the checkered flag on the next lap — but the flagger never threw it. The car was so good that we had put some distance on the pack, and the flagger lost track of us.”
Outside Groove Note of Transparency: We corrected the car owner’s name (2022-10-25).
The Outside Groove Director of Photography 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.
