FORESTVILLE - In addition to winning Friday night's 358 modified feature at Big Diamond Speedway, Boyertown's Ryan Watt made another kind of history.
Adding his name to Ryan Godown's as feature victors in the 2014 season, Watt may have become the last 358 modified winner competing on a different brand of tire than the track's required brand, Hoosier, for a while.
The track began the season allowing teams to use tires, regardless of brand, that they owned prior to the mandated use of Hoosier beginning with the Friday, April 25, program.
Therefore, Friday night was the final time the 358 modifieds were allowed to use American Racer tires.
Watt took full advantage, grabbing the lead from Temple's Meme DeSantis on the 10th lap and pacing the remaining laps to win $3,000.
Watt then announced he may not return to the Forestville track for a while.
"Because they're switching over to Hoosiers, we just don't have the tires," Watt said about the team owned by Delaware residents Ron Roberts and Fay Marion. "Running American Racers at Bridgeport (Speedway), it's too much swapping wheels back and forth to do it."
Despite starting third, Watt had to be patient as polesitter Tom Umbenhauer and then DeSantis held the lead. The 30-lap feature had seven caution periods, including two in which lead changes were negated by caution flags.
Watt finally made his move on a 10th-lap, double-file restart.
"We finally got a good run down the frontstretch," he said. "I knew, if we could run down the frontstretch equal enough, we could get a shot at him going into the corner. It worked out for us."
DeSantis eventually placed second, .795 seconds behind Watt. Rick Laubach took third ahead of Jeff Strunk and Frank Cozze.
Kevin Albert Jr., Laubach and Brett Kressley won heats. John Willman took the consolation.
In other action, Newberrytown's Billy Wampler took the late model feature, Schuylkill Haven's Tom Hablett repeated as roadrunner feature winner and Wiconisco's Matt Lawrence claimed the enduro dash.
Wampler, the track champion at Newberrytown's Susquehanna Speedway Park, drove away from 11 358 late model rivals.
"This has always been one of my favorite places since I started racing how many years ago," he said about Big Diamond, noting he plans to race every late model program there in 2014.
Scott Haus placed second ahead of Chase Billet, Bryan Bernheisel and Steve Nederostek.
Father and son, Andy and Scott Haus, won the late model heats.
After grabbing the lead on a 12th-lap restart, Hablett fought off both Jim Kost and Chris Holland to beat the latter to the checkered flag of the roadrunner feature by one car-length.
Passing Kost for the lead in a race that lasted 28 minutes because of seven caution flags, Hablett said, "The restart was pretty good because he was going to try to run me up the track and get in the loose stuff, and I refused to go up this time unlike the restart before."
Holland edged Kost for second place. Terry Kramer Jr. was fourth and Jeremy Becker placed fifth.
T.J. Fitzpatrick and Tim Fitzpatrick Jr. took roadrunner heats.
In the 20-lap enduro dash, Lawrence edged fellow Wiconisco resident and 15-year-old driver Tyler Lucas by mere inches at the finish.
Joey Young, Mike Koppenhaver and Scott Peters completed the top five.
Big Diamond Speedway
Friday's results
358 modifieds (30 laps) - 1. Ryan Watt ($3,000), 2. Meme DeSantis, 3. Rick Laubach, 4. Jeff Strunk, 5. Frank Cozze, 6. Doug Manmiller, 7. Stewart Friesen, 8. Brett Kressley, 9. Dan Hineline, 10. Joe Mooney, 11. Tim Fitzpatrick, 12. Kevin Smith, 13. Kevin Albert Jr., 14. Ron Haring Jr., 15. Andy Burkhart, 16. Duane Howard, 17. Billy Pauch Jr., 18. Craig Von Dohren, 19. Jared Umbenhauer, 20. Tom Umbenhauer, 21. Colt Harris, 22. Shawn Fitzpatrick, 23. Tim Buckwalter, 24. Dale Hartz, 25. John Willman, 26. Kyle Follweiler
358 late models (20 laps) - 1. Billy Wampler ($1,000), 2. Scott Haus, 3. Chase Billet, 4. Bryan Bernheisel, 5. Steve Nederostek, 6. Danny Snyder, 7. Sean Merkel, 8. Andy Haus, 9. Bryon Sipe, 10. Drew Weiser, 11. Devin Frey, 12. Randall Paxton
Roadrunners (20 laps) - 1. Tom Hablett ($300), 2. Chris Holland, 3. Jim Kost, 4. Terry Kramer Jr., 5. Jeremy Becker, 6. Shon Elk, 7. Jason Brown, 8. Chuck Eckert, 9. Glenn Rowan, 10. Tim Fitzpatrick Jr., 11. Jared Seigfried, 12. Kyle Wingle, 13. Joe Kavanaugh, 14. Billy Wingle Jr., 15. John Whyne, 16. Jon Schlauch, 17. Kris Ney, 18. T.J. Fitzpatrick, 19. Joey Brennan
Enduro dash (20 laps) - 1. Matt Lawrence, 2. Tyler Lucas, 3. Joey Young, 4. Mike Koppenhaver, 5. Scott Peters, 6. Ben Ferree, 7. Keith Ramer, 8. Marlin Whitcomb, 9. Chris Angstadt, 10. Edward Flynn, 11. Mike Allar, 12. Bob Engle, 13. Sam Creveling