Services to Squash Award goes to Tim Garner
By SEAN REUTHE in Cairo

Egyptian World No.1s Ali Farag and Raneem El Welily were crowned the 2018-19 PSA Players of the Year last night (June 8) during the annual PSA Awards dinner held at the Mena House Hotel, Cairo.


The PSA Awards dinner took place on the eve of the 2018-19 CIB PSA World Tour Finals, the PSA World Tour’s season-ending tournament, where Farag and El Welily will feature as the No.1 seeds in the men’s and women’s events.

Farag picked up the PSA Men’s Player of the Year award courtesy of a superb season that saw him become World No.1 for the first time, overtaking 2018-19 Player of the Year and compatriot Mohamed ElShorbagy – and claim six titles, including the PSA World Championships.

The man Farag beat in the World Championship final, Tarek Momen, came second in the voting following a fine season in which he reached a career-high ranking of World No.3, won two titles and reached a further three finals.

Meanwhile, El Welily won the PSA Women’s Player of the Year award for the second time after a campaign that saw her win five titles and dethrone last year’s women’s Player of the Year, Nour El Sherbini, as World No.1.

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New Zealand’s Joelle King finished as runner-up for a second successive year after a season that saw her win her maiden PSA Platinum title at the Hong Kong Open, while she also took the honours at the Manchester Open in May.

Farag and El Welily also took home the men’s and women’s PSA Spirit of Squash Awards. The award is voted for by PSA players and is presented to the players who best demonstrated true sportsmanship during the season. It is the third year in a row that El Welily has taken the honour, while Farag claims the men’s award for the third time in four years.

El Welily continued to dominate the awards night as she also won the PSA Women’s Shot of the Season Award, while her comeback from two games down against El Sherbini in the DPD Open final was named the PSA Women’s Match of the Season.

The PSA Men’s Shot of the Season Award went to France’s World No.60 Baptiste Masotti, while Farag’s semi-final battle with New Zealand’s Paul Coll at last month’s Allam British Open was named the PSA Men’s Match of the Season.

Egypt’s Nouran Gohar collected the PSA Women’s Young Player of the Year for the third time in four years, just two weeks after capturing the British Open crown. Her fellow Egyptian Youssef Ibrahim took the men’s honour after winning six titles throughout the season.

The evening’s other award went to PSA Event Director Tim Garner, who was presented with the PSA Services to Squash award. The award, presented by the PSA Foundation, came in recognition of his outstanding commitment and service to the sport over the past 12 months.

Garner, a former World No.26, has been the mastermind behind the popular Canary Wharf Classic since the event began in 2004, while he also served as Tournament Director at the sport’s biggest tournament – the PSA World Championships in February – as well as the British Open and Manchester Open this season. Garner also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in March, earning almost £1,000 for the PSA Foundation in the process.

Garner, who was instrumental in helping showcase the sport at the Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games in October, will also act as Tournament Director for the World Tour Finals, which takes place this week at Cairo’s Mall of Arabia between June 9-14.

PSA Annual Awards 2018-19.

PSA Men’s Player of the Year
Winner: Ali Farag (EGY)
Runner-up: Tarek Momen (EGY)

PSA Women’s Player of the Year
Winner: Raneem El Welily (EGY)
Runner-up: Joelle King (NZL)

PSA Men’s Young Player of the Year
Winner: Youssef Ibrahim (EGY)
Runner-up: Mostafa Asal (EGY)

PSA Women’s Young Player of the Year
Winner: Nouran Gohar (EGY)
Runner-up: Yathreb Adel (EGY)

PSA Men’s Spirit of Squash Award
Winner: Ali Farag (EGY)

PSA Women’s Spirit of Squash Award
Winner: Raneem El Welily (EGY)

PSA Services to Squash
Awarded to Tim Garner

PSA Men’s Shot of the Season
Winner: Baptiste Masotti (FRA)

PSA Women’s Shot of the Season
Winner: Raneem El Welily (EGY)

PSA Men’s Match of the Season
Winner: Ali Farag (EGY) 3-2 Paul Coll (NZL) – 2019 Allam British Open, Semi-finals

PSA Women’s Match of the Season
Winner: Raneem El Welily (EGY) 3-2 Nour El Sherbini (EGY) – 2019 DPD Open, Final

Pictures courtesy of PSA

DACONO, Colo. — Hailie Deegan wasn’t leaving Colorado without a trophy.

And she showed she meant it on Saturday night at Colorado National Speedway, bumping her Bill McAnally Racing teammate Derek Kraus out of the way in overtime to grab her second K&N Pro Series West victory of the season and third of her career.

“That was probably the scrappiest race I’ve ever ran,” she said. “In the end, we went out there, ran our hardest race. Everything I’ve been practicing, all the hard racing I’ve been running. Derek (Kraus) ran me hard right there (turn two), so I was going to run him hard back (turn four). And that’s racing. We were all going for the kill. I got the win and that’s all that matters.”

It was an accomplishment in and of itself that Kraus was even in contention for the win, as a broken sway-bar saw No. 16 fade at around lap 50 from the lead to hanging on for dear life inside the top five.

But when given the opportunity, Kraus pounced.

The two-time K&N West winner in 2019 dove into turn one on the restart and made contact with Deegan’s left-side, clearing her for the top spot, only to be left in a cloud of smoke one lap later.

Under the caution that set up the green/white/checkered finish, the No. 19 team debated whether to select the top or bottom lane for the final restart. After taking the top all evening long, they opted for the bottom to thwart any dive bomb attempt from Jagger Jones.

As it turned out, Kraus wound up being the one who dove inside the two and made it three-wide for the lead, and Jones wasn’t too pleased.

Team owner Bill McAnally experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows in a 30-second span, and attempted to encapsulate his feelings as he celebrated in victory lane.

“To have our cars up there slicing and dicing for the win is pretty special,” he said. “You knew the No. 6 (Jones) and No. 19 (Deegan) were going to get together, so I was worried about that already. And then when the No. 16 (Kraus) goes and gets three-wide, my heart hit the ground for a minute for sure. It’s bittersweet. Hailie wins the race, Derek gets spun around, they all drove hard. That’s what they’re here to do: win and develop. They’re doing a pretty good job of that.”

Starting from the pole for the first time in his K&N Pro Series career, Colorado native Kody Vanderwal escaped the last-lap carnage to finish second, his best result of the season. Todd Souza earned his second top five of the season and first top three finish since May of 2017, coming home third.

Brittney Zamora, who rebounded from spinning late, finished fourth with Matt Levin rounding out the top five. John Wood, Jones (spun while running third in overtime), Kraus, Trevor Huddleston and Takuma Koga completed the top 10.

SPOON RIVER, Ill. — Paul Nienhiser won his second Built Ford Tough MOWA Sprint Car Series Delivered by Morrow Brothers Ford feature in as many nights Saturday night at Spoon River Speedway.

Nienhiser used his third-place starting position to his advantage tonight, working his way to the front ahead of front-row starters Dustin Barks and Steve Short.

Nienhiser won Friday night’s MOWA feature at Iowa’s Lee County Speedway.

“I felt that we had a really good car here tonight. We were able to pick up right where we left off last year, here at (Spoon River), as we won our last MOWA race back in September. It’s a really good feeling to go home after tonight, sweeping the weekend,” said Nienhiser.

Second-starting Short held onto his position for most of the feature and was able to record a second-place finish for his first race in Spoon River in at least 15 years.

Kyle Schuett scored his first career podium finish in a sprint car with his third-place run at Spoon River. Schuett was followed to the line by Jordan Goldesberry and Jim Moughan, who finished fifth.

The finish:

1 – Paul Nienhiser 9X (5), 2 – Steve Short 8S (8), 3 – Kyle Schuett 9K (9), 4 – Jordan Goldesberry 65 (2), 5 – Jim Moughan 1M (1), 6 – Jason Keith 28 (7), 7 – Jacob Patton 79J (3), 8 – Jeremy Standridge 10S (13), 9 – Logan Faucon 52F (4), 10 – Jake Neuman 6A (12), 11 – Brinton Marvel 21 (18), 12 – Justin Standridge 01 (17), 13 – Cory Bruns 44 (14), 14 – Brayton Lynch 29X (19), 15 – Dylan Tuxhorn 9T (15), 16 – George Crawford 57 (16), 17 – Dustin Barks 22 (6), 18 – Ryan Bunton 6R (11), 19 – Austin Archdale 2A (20), 20 – Terry Babb 47 (10), 21 – John Parker 82 (21),

TULARE, Calif. — A surprised Rico Abreu ended up in victory lane at the Peter Murphy Classic for the Fujitsu King of the West 410 Series sprint cars at the Thunderbowl Raceway on Saturday night.

Bud Kaeding had the lead coming to the checkered flag when he had an issue with the fourth-turn wall and ended up upside down causing a red flag and the race to go into overtime.

Abreu had just taken over second place from Jonathan Allard who had led the race he was passed by Kaeding. Allard and Colby Copeland made up the front row at the start with the recent series winner at Petaluma jumping to an early lead.

It was Copeland who would lead the first 10 laps until he slowed and who eventually cause a caution when he didn’t make it off the track. Allard would take over the lead on the restart and was closely followed by Kaeding who started in the third spot.

Kaeding passed Allard on the 17th circuit. The race would stay green with Kaeding comfortably up front until lap 24 when the caution would slow the race again when Matt Demartini stopped on the front stretch.  With a clear track, it was Kaeding who appeared to be headed for another Murphy Classic title, only to first to bounce off the second turn wall and then climb the fourth turn wall and flip over, ending his chances at the $11,000 winner’s check.

Abreu and Allard didn’t change positions in the overtime laps, but it was Dominic Scelzi who went from third to fifth.  Both D.J. Netto and Ryan Bernal got around the Roth Motorsports No. 83.

Scelzi won the 25-lap King of Thunder race just an hour before.

Tim Kaeding led the 25 cars entered with a 13:844 second qualifying lap.

The finish:

Rico Abreu, Jonathan Allard, D.J. Netto, Ryan Bernal, Dominic Scelzi, Jason Statler, Mitchell Faccinto, Colby Copeland, Willie Croft, Geoff Ensign, Chase Johnson, Tim Kaeding, Nathan Rolfe, Chelsea Blevins, Sean Watts, Kenny Allen, Mark Barroso, Bud Kaeding, Matt Demartini, Stephen Ingraham, Richard Brace, Craig Stidham, Kyle Hirst, Cole Macedo

SAUK RAPIDS, Minn. — Brad Sweet overcame his own mistake to win Saturday night’s World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series feature at Granite City Speedway.

Sweet was leading the race and battling David Gravel for the lead when his No. 49 Kasey Kahne Racing machine slipped over the cushion in turn four. Sweet remained focused.

“I’ve been on the tour long enough that I don’t let the emotions get to me,” Sweet said.

That mentality led to him overcoming his mistake and claiming his third series win this season and 37th of his career. He also claimed the series point lead from Donny Schatz.

“I was bound and determined I think to win that one,” Sweet said. “I’m just happy to get the win.”

At the start of the 35-lap feature, Sweet was a cheetah among kittens. He rocketed by polesitter Gravel for the lead on the initial start and pulled away by half a track.

Sweet caught lap traffic by Lap six and was lapping up to 14th-place by lap 15.

However, once the race reached the halfway point, Gravel began to reel Sweet in. The obstacle course of lap cars Sweet had mastered became a cluster of road blocks.

Then, with 11 laps to go, the unimaginable happened. Ten-time Series champion Schatz hit the wall exiting turn four, destroying the rear end birdcage and ending his night.

On the following restart, Gravel snuck underneath Sweet, slid up in front of him in turn one and launched to the lead.

“I just spun my tires,” Sweet said. “I was too anxious to make sure I got the jump. Once you get spinning there’s really no way to get your tires back.”

Sweet wasn’t ready to let another win slip away. He followed Gravel’s tracks, riding the high side of the speedway, keeping the Jason Johnson Racing No. 41 in sight.

With seven laps to go, Gravel bounced his car off the cushion exiting turn four, drastically killing his speed. Sweet then threw his car underneath Gravel going into turn one and slid back in front of him.

Sweet’s next trip around turn four crashed a wave of shock, excitement and qualm into the crowd. He hammered the cushion, sending his front end toward the wall. While he wrestled to stay off the white barrier, Gravel turned back underneath Sweet and reclaimed the lead.

Sweet was bound and determined, though.

With a Hail Mary slide job, he hurled his car to the bottom of the turn one and slid up in front of Gravel exiting turn two. The lead was his. And in the next few laps, the win was, too.

“All you can do is try your hardest and sometimes when you over try bad things happen,” Sweet said about having to rebound from hitting the cushion. “I thought we had the superior car, so I was frustrated with myself I was even in that position. But it played out right. You’re going to win some of those. You’re going to lose some of those. Luckily, tonight we got the win.”

When Sweet sped away with the lead, Gravel was left having to defend second from a hard charging Logan Schuchart in third place.

“It was a good effort. It was a good race,” Gravel said. “He (Sweet) just pulled away from us early, but I kind of let him go and hopefully I was going to be better than him.”

Sweet’s consistency of five podium finishes in-a-row has led to him holding a 12-point lead over  Schatz.

“Honestly, I don’t pay much attention to the points,” Sweet said. “I don’t want Donny to have a 200-point lead because our goal is to win the championship. But I also know that there are stretches of races that if you’re not running good the points can shift so much.

“At the beginning of my career with the Outlaws, I would look at the points after every race. Now I’m lucky to look at it every three or four races and kind of see where things are at. I know if we’re running good and (Schatz) is behind us we’re going to be gaining. If he’s in front of us every night, then he’s going to be ahead of us. The points will take care of themselves. We’re 26 races into an 80-race schedule. Really, June, July and August are what set the tone for the points. Honestly, we just want to win races.”

To see full results, turn to the next page.

ROSSBURG, Ohio — After decades of visiting Eldora Speedway, Mark Richards and the Rocket Chassis house team has finally won a crown jewel event at the famed half-mile dirt track.

Brandon Sheppard continued his season of dominance behind the wheel of the Rocket1 Racing machine on Saturday night, scoring the $125,000 check after 100 laps in the 25th running of the Dirt Late Model Dream.

This win stands as Sheppard’s first victory at “The Big E” of any kind since his two preliminary feature wins in the 2015 World 100. It also serves as one of the biggest paydays in Rocket1 Racing history and Sheppard could not be prouder to be the man to bring it home for his longtime friends and car owners, Mark Richards and Steve Baker.

“This is just… a day of dreams, that’s for sure,” said Sheppard. “All-in-all, this is one of the big ones that you always want to win, and it just so happens that this year, it paid $125,000. This is just phenomenal, I’m almost at a loss for words.”

Sheppard began his charge to the front right from the drop of the green, advancing 10 positions in just 19 laps. He did so by making the majority of his passes in the low-middle grooves, knowing that saving his tires would be necessary later in the race.

“I was really maneuverable at the beginning of the race,” Sheppard said. “I didn’t have to get up there and rip the cushion too hard, and that was kind of the plan in my head – to not rip the cushion at the beginning of the race, because I didn’t want to wear my tires out like I did in the end.”

The original leaders, Kyle Bronson and polesitter Kyle Strickler, took command out front and led the first 48 circuits before Earl Pearson Jr. came to the front and brought a full head of steam, powering underneath Bronson for second in turn two and then Strickler to take the lead out of turn four.

Once Pearson grabbed the lead, it didn’t take long for him to show his hand, as he opened up a 2.5-second advantage over Sheppard inside of just 12 laps. With the way Pearson was smooth sailing on the top side, it looked as though he was going to be a contender at the end. Until trouble struck the leader with just 29 laps to go…

According to his crew members, Pearson ran over a chunk of another car’s spoiler that was blown up into the middle of his groove, resulting in a punctured right-front tire and forcing him to surrender the lead to Sheppard. Pearson got the tire changed before the ensuing restart, but ultimately ended up calling it quits after getting involved in a wreck with 87 laps in the books.

Meanwhile, 2012 Dream winner Shane Clanton had already been rolling on his charge to the front. Starting back in the 11th position, “The Georgia Bulldog” sat as low as 15th at one point, but got back up on the horse and cracked the whip at lap 60, picking up five spots in just 13 laps to get back into the top five.

“When I fell back there, I just got hung out in the middle on a restart and they went by me on both sides,” he said. “Seven cars passed me in a lap and a half, and then the caution came out again and allowed me to regroup and get my bearings back. I knew we still had a long way to go, so I was just biding my time to get to the front again.”

And get to the front he did, as he fell back to eighth before a caution came out on lap 83 but passed four cars on the ensuing restart to take fourth. A battle ignited with 10 laps remaining for the second spot with Clanton, Dale McDowell and Tyler Erb – one which McDowell won but set Clanton up for the opportunity to come back and pass Erb for third with just two circuits remaining.

“When I got up beside Dale, his crew guys told him to get to the bottom,” Clanton said. “It was cleaning up, and when he got down there it took the air off my nose and I pushed across the middle. I was afraid I was going to lose third, but luckily I was able to hold onto it.”

On the other side of that battle, McDowell put together another terrific effort that his fans are used to seeing from him at Eldora, culminating with an incredible photo-finish at the line as he made a last-ditch effort to try and nip Sheppard for the win.

Once McDowell cleared Erb and Clanton with only five laps remaining, he attacked the low side of the half-mile racetrack and found the grip he needed to catch Sheppard, who was about a half-straightaway ahead at the time. Lap by lap, “The Mac Daddy” chopped away at “The Rocket Shepp” and his lead, reaching the #1’s quarter-panel with only three turns left.

Into turn three they raced, Sheppard nearly scrubbing the outside wall, McDowell hugging the inside jersey barrier. As they came out of turn four, McDowell drifted up the track and appeared to have nosed ahead by inches, but Sheppard hit a little something he’d been using lap-after-lap on the high side to propel him past McDowell for the win by just 0.056 seconds.

“It was one of those deals where I was running the cushion and when I got to the front-straightaway, I was still on the cushion’s bend a little bit, and there was a little hump there and it shot me down the track,” Sheppard said. “We didn’t beat him by much, but it was just enough.”

McDowell simultaneously used the great bite he got on the bottom of turn four and dove for the stripe, making contact with Sheppard and sending himself spinning to a stop in the middle of turn one after the checkered.

“I had a good drive off of the corner and I actually thought I could beat Brandon to the flag,” McDowell said. “He just got a good run up top and came to the finish line before me.”

McDowell had lost a close one, but in the end, knew it was just another racing deal and spoke of it like a true champion, congratulating Sheppard, Richards, Baker and the whole Rocket1 Racing team on their first crown jewel win at Eldora.

“It just wasn’t meant to be,” McDowell said. “We ran second, everybody had a good, safe race. There is a lot of money difference, but you can’t think about that. You just go on to the next one and try to win it.

“We’re proud that we could make it that close and make it exciting for the race fans. Hopefully, we can come back here in September and get us one,” McDowell added.

The finish:

Feature (100 laps): 1. 1-Brandon Sheppard[15]; 2. 17M-Dale McDowell[13]; 3. 25C-Shane Clanton[11]; 4. 18-Chase Junghans[18]; 5. 1T-Tyler Erb[7]; 6. 22-Chris Ferguson[20]; 7. 7W-Ricky Weiss[8]; 8. 25Z-Mason Zeigler[19]; 9. 23B-John Blankenship[5]; 10. 29-Darrell Lanigan[27]; 11. 0B-Shannon Babb[28]; 12. 39-Tim McCreadie[4]; 13. 87-Ross Bailes[12]; 14. 8S-Kyle Strickler[1]; 15. 2-Brandon Overton[24]; 16. 40B-Kyle Bronson[3]; 17. 88R-Andrew Reaume[16]; 18. 20-Jimmy Owens[14]; 19. 1P-Earl Pearson Jr.[10]; 20. 7M-Donald Mcintosh[21]; 21. 32-Bobby Pierce[23]; 22. 17-Zack Dohm[25]; 23. 49D-Jonathan Davenport[6]; 24. 7R-Kent Robinson[22]; 25. 3S-Brian Shirley[26]; 26. 28-Dennis Erb Jr.[2]; 27. 1S-Chad Simpson[9]; 28. 99RT-Ricky Thornton Jr.[17]