By Kasey Kreider

(Thumbnail Photo Courtesy of Wayne Hohler Photography)

Every season, the Wingless Night of the Labor Day Shootout seems to set the bar for on-track action and excitement. The 2026 iteration of the event was no exception, as the stars of the Hyper Racing Wingless 600s were out in full force for the annual Sunday night affair, while the competitors of the Border Magic 270s, Gretna Graphics 125/4 Strokes, and the Junior Sprints enjoyed the rare opportunity remove the top foil and show off their own non-wing skills.

In another classic Labor Day Shootout finish that came down to the final turn, Gunnar Pio outgunned Christian Bruno to the checkered flag to score the $1,250-to-win 30-lapper in the Wingless 600 division. For the first time since 2020, Mike Rutherford returned to Labor Day weekend victory lane, as the Lebanon driver captured an astounding 25th A-Main victory at the Shootout after triumphing in an entertaining Wingless 270 feature. Brandon Heist put his No. 99 back in the winner’s circle, but this time in the Wingless 125/4 Strokes as he charged from fifth to win their A-Main. And Logan Schibilia became a first-time Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway winner when he took the checkers of the inaugural Wingless Junior Sprint Labor Day Shootout main event.

Hyper Racing Wingless 600

With 56 Wingless 600 competitors signed in for competition – plus 31 racing in the Wingless 270 division – both the 600s and 270s utilized the same format as Saturday night’s festivities. Drivers would begin the night by racing against the clock in a group time trial session, and would then choose their starting spot – in whichever heat race they desired – to give themselves the best chance of accumulating passing points. Those passing points from the heats would determine the A-Main lock-in cars and the order in which they would start the 30-lap features.

Gunnar Pio’s path to a Labor Day Shootout win began with turning the sixth-fastest speed in time trials aboard the Tim West and Julie Sechrist-owned East Coast Transponders No. 25 Hyper Chassis. When it came time for Pio to select his starting spot for the heats, the Kunkletown pilot took a gamble and elected to start sixth in the fifth heat race, a position much further back than many of the other quick timers had chosen to start.

The high risk proved to be high reward though, as Pio stormed from the outside of the third row to come home second in the 10-lap preliminary. That performance was good enough to put Pio starting in fourth position for the feature, a welcome change to Saturday night when Pio had to race out of the B-Main and charged all the way up to third by the time the A-Main checkered flag fell.

Matt Warner – the Saturday night winner – put himself in prime position to sweep the weekend when he timed quickest in qualifying and went from fourth to first in his heat race. Defending Wingless 600 Shootout winner Christian Bruno timed second and duplicated Warner’s four-to-one run in his heat, putting those two drivers on the front row for the 30-lap finale.

While Warner and Bruno led the field down for the start, neither driver would be ahead at the end of the opening lap. Those honors instead went to Dominic Schmidt, who made really good traction off the bottom groove on the initial revolution and quickly elevated from third to the lead. Searching for redemption after an engine failure while leading Saturday’s Winged 600 race, Schmidt set the early pace while the battle for positions behind him continued to rage on.

A lap 4 restart gave Pio a prime opportunity to pick up some positions, as he used the bottom groove to slip past Bruno and then threw a slider on Warner to claim the runner-up spot. As the green-flag run continued and the leaders approached the back of the field, Pio put his eyes on Schmidt and tracked him down to race for the lead.

It took two sliders and a crossover to seal the pass, but Pio wrestled away the top spot just prior to the halfway mark of the race. After carving through lapped cars for a couple of laps, Pio avoided a repeat of the Hyper Racing 600 Speedweek Finale where he had been taken out by a lapped traffic crash and kept his nose clean before the caution flag waved with 12 laps to go.

As Pio held command through the race’s waning stages, Bruno began to come back to life in his bid for back-to-back Labor Day Shootout wins. The pilot of the No. 5 battled past Schmidt with nine laps left, and attempted to track down Pio from one second back as the laps clicked off. Bruno’s rally was unsuccessful, but a caution flag with just two laps remaining closed the gap between the two and set the stage for a thrilling finish.

After another caution and ensuing red-flag period raised the tension even more, the chase for the win finally commenced, and the race’s final 30 seconds were hair-raising. Bruno kept Pio on his front bumper through turns 1 and 2, and made his first move for the lead down into turn 3. Pio crossed over nicely and took the lead back at the white flag, but Bruno was close enough to try the move one more time in the final run toward the final turns.

Bruno slid across the nose of Pio’s No. 25 and parked his car in the middle of turns 3 and 4, but Pio was once again ready to yank the steering wheel back to the left, and powered off of the final corner to claim a marquee Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway win that had alluded him over the past few years.

Gunnar Pio (No. 25) beat out Christian Bruno (No. 5) in a back-and-forth battle for the win during Sunday night’s Hyper Racing Wingless 600 Labor Day Shootout. (Photo Courtesy of Tom Iaeger)

Bruno had to settle for second despite the late-race fireworks, while Schmidt brought his No. 3 home in the third spot. Warner completed his great weekend by finishing fourth, and Nick Fauci collected top fives on both nights of the Shootout after coming home fifth.

Results:

1. 25-Gunnar Pio[4]; 2. 5-Christian Bruno[2]; 3. 3-Dominic Schmidt[3]; 4. 98-Matthew Warner[1]; 5. 95F-Nicholas Fauci[5]; 6. 10L-Lukas Kostic[10]; 7. 01M-Aden Myers[12]; 8. 14C-Connor Gross[11]; 9. 71-Brian Kramer[16]; 10. 1F-James Fries[9]; 11. 96-Zach Jurcik[7]; 12. 15D-Matthew Donley[20]; 13. 51-Chris Gerhart[25]; 14. 9X-Connor Mirabelli[24]; 15. 17-Cole Perez[23]; 16. 33-Owen Steigerwalt[13]; 17. 707-Jax Wittmer[17]; 18. 34-Abel Engler[14]; 19. 14-Cole Gerber[22]; 20. 2X-Jason Swavely[15]; 21. 8-Kyle Lick[26]; 22. 76-Larry Kelleher[19]; 23. 11X-Logan Falini[21]; 24. 29J-Jacob Neff[18]; 25. 72-Jesse Maurer[8]; 26. 81G-GianCarlo Ramessar[6]

DNQ: 28-Brent Shearer; 5C-Grady Rinehart; 03-Ryan Groff; 57C-Cooper Fritz; 7R-Luke Repsik; 32R-Cody Rose; 9G-Grady McGrew; 30F-Peyton Faust; 1S-Will Simco; 17B-Aubree Bane; 84-TJ Dilts; 15Q-Quinn Llewellyn; 14Z-Tony Zajonczkoski; 12-Tucker Gordner; 24K-David Kirkner; 41-Eddie Mort; 11H-Holden Eckman; 23B-Chase Bouchelle; 46-Louie Horvath; 89S-Brett Greenlee; 99G-Gordon Greenlaw; 721-Steven Miller; 2L-Luke Hess; 7J-Cyle Johnson; 29SR-Brayden Benjamin; 24T-TJ Greve; 31-Brandon Shearer; 99-Kaden Wenger; 2-Brantlee Leitzel; 12J-Jacob Homnick

Gunnar Pio pocketed $1,250 and scored his first Labor Day Shootout win on Sunday night in the Hyper Racing Wingless 600 division. (Photo Courtesy of Ryan Snyder/ReflexX Photography)

Border Magic Wingless 270

Perhaps there was no more fitting time for Mike Rutherford to make his return to 270 victory lane at Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway than during Labor Day weekend. The all-time winningest driver in Labor Day Shootout history racked up his 25th victory during the historic racing weekend – but his first Shootout win since 2020 – holding off Anthony Yerger down the stretch of an exciting Border Magic Wingless 270 main event.

The run that defined Rutherford’s night may have actually come in the heat race, as after the Lebanon driver time-trialed 12th, he elected to start 10th – last – in the final heat race of the night.

With an aggressive yet calculated charge that only a champion like Rutherford can master, the Titan Wings No. 27T RTS Chassis bolted all the way up to second by the time the checkered flag flew in the heat race. It was a performance worth 133 points in the passing points matrix, and it vaulted him onto the pole position for the A-Main.

Rutherford’s main challenger for much of the race was Jason Swavely, who had won twice on Saturday night and was searching for his fourth-straight win in the Wingless 270 Shootout. The two veterans with dozens of Labor Day victories between them ran distinctly different lines around the speedway, as Rutherford finessed his car around the bottom groove while Swavely motored up against the guardrail.

Swavely briefly took the lead on a lap 13 restart, but when another caution flew just a lap later, Rutherford had a chance to respond. Rutherford backed up the entrance to the corner on the initial run down to turn 3, and then slingshotted his way underneath Swavely out of turn 4 to retake command.

Swavely began to mount another charge on the outside groove, but suffered a flat tire that would be his undoing in his quest for another win. With Swavely out of action, the top groove was open for a new driver to blaze, and that turned out to be Anthony Yerger, as he raced his way into contention over the final laps.

Yerger passed Brandon Heist for second with seven laps left, and ripped the lip all the way around the track in an effort to swipe the win away. Yerger’s best chance came with three laps to go, when he closed right onto Rutherford’s bumper and followed him down into turn 1. Ultimately, Rutherford was just too fast around the low groove, and Yerger was unable to rebuild the momentum that he needed to make the pass for the win.

So it was Rutherford dashing under the checkers first for his fourth Wingless 270 Shootout win, tied with Swavely for the most all-time in the 12-year history of the race. Behind them, Bradley Brown rallied from a spin to beat Heist for the third position right at the finish line. Former Wingless 270 Shootout winner Dan Lane, Jr. rounded out the top five from 17th, and Kyle Lindsey scored the Border Magic Hard Charger Bonus after advancing 16 spots from 23rd to seventh.

Results:

1. 27T-Michael Rutherford[1]; 2. 5A-Anthony Yerger[7]; 3. 2R-Bradley Brown[4]; 4. 4R-Brandon Heist Sr[2]; 5. 16-Dan Lane Jr[17]; 6. 29J-Jacob Neff[8]; 7. 28-Kyle Lindsey[23]; 8. 30-Ryan Heckman[20]; 9. 94-Dallas Sanders[18]; 10. 1J-Toby Blumenshine[9]; 11. 17-Masen Stapleton[6]; 12. 29-Steve Simmons[15]; 13. 11H-Chason Hauck[24]; 14. 2X-Jason Swavely[3]; 15. 27O-Billy Logeman[14]; 16. 1L-Logan Hess[13]; 17. 39M-Austin Mieczkowski[10]; 18. 82-John Maurer[19]; 19. 22-Jesse Leiby[22]; 20. 0-Charles Chance[16]; 21. 26-Corey Schmuck Jr[12]; 22. 32-Michael Hoffmaster[11]; 23. 1A-Brandon Shearer[21]; 24. 1X-Brent Shearer[5]

DNQ: 25-Chris Marafino; 24J-Maxx Johnson; 39P-Dylan Pennypacker; 78-Cole Williams; 23B-Chase Bouchelle; 76H-Bryson Haugh; 14-Michael Pitts

Mike Rutherford won his fourth Border Magic Wingless 270 Labor Day Shootout on Sunday night at Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway. (Photo Courtesy of Mike Knappenberger Photos)

Gretna Graphics Wingless 125/4 Stroke

After suffering a mechanical issue from the lead of Saturday night’s Sportsman Labor Day Shootout, Brandon Heist was able to get some redemption on the Wingless Night of the Shootout, as strapped a different engine onto the side of his PWE Racing Engines No. 99 RTS Chassis and pocketed the win of the Gretna Graphics Wingless 125/4 Stroke main event.

Heist started the feature from the fifth position, but didn’t stay there long as he skirted around the inside groove of the track and elevated up to third. For the next several laps, Heist bided his time racing behind race leader Dave Schroeder and second-place runner Trevor Waegel – who had won Saturday night’s Winged 125/4 Stroke Shootout and was looking to sweep the weekend.

Heist saw an opportunity to race inside of Waegel on the run down to turn 1 and took it, moving into second on lap 11. Two laps later, he gunned his machine inside of Schroeder down the backstretch and completed the move for the lead.

Heist wasn’t substantially challenged from that point forward, and led the rest of the way to score his third-career Labor Day Shootout win, with the other two coming in the Sportsman class. The win also marked the third different class that Heist had scored a victory in during racing at the Clyde in 2026. The same car that Heist piloted to the win on Sunday night had also captured wins in the 270 and Sportsman divisions.

Seth Gregory would eventually finish second after Schroeder dropped out with just a few laps remaining, while Mason Peters rounded out the podium. Brandon Shearer drove up from last to finish fourth, and Waegel bounced back from a late-race incident to cap off the top five.

Results:

1. 99-Brandon Heist Sr[5]; 2. 14-Seth Gregory[4]; 3. 19-Mason Peters[10]; 4. 75-Brandon Shearer[15]; 5. 44X-Trevor Waegel[2]; 6. 112-Dylan Yeingst[6]; 7. 14G-David Gibson[14]; 8. X-Dave Schroeder[1]; 9. 76-Justin Harrington[3]; 10. 23-Asher Kempton[9]; 11. 68-Kevin Jones[11]; 12. 15-Mitchell Gibson[7]; 13. 3H2-Holly Harting[12]; 14. 17-Aspen Groff[13]; 15. 3H-Corey Harting[8]

Brandon Heist became a Labor Day Shootout winner for the third time after triumphing in Sunday night’s Gretna Graphics Wingless 125/4 Stroke A-Main. (Photo Courtesy of Wayne Hohler Photography)

Wingless Junior Sprints

Nazareth driver Logan Schibilia had to earn his first Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway victory on Sunday night, as Hyper Racing Speedweek Finale winner Barrett Bressler applied pressure on the young racer during the closing laps. But Schibilia rose to the occasion and captured the first Wingless edition of the Junior Sprints’ “Clash at the Clyde” during the Labor Day Shootout weekend.

Schibilia and Bressler’s battle began in the heat race, where Schibilia grabbed the top spot from the outside pole and held on to take the checkers first. With the drivers starting heads up from how they finished their heat race, that secured Schibilia the pole position for the A-Main.

Once feature time rolled around, Schibilia’s S&R Tile and Marble No. 45 Storm Chassis showed the same strength that it had in the preliminary race, as he pulled away to a lead of roughly six car lengths during the opening laps.

But as time wound down in the feature, Schibilia’s lead started to go away. Bressler made up ground by keeping his car lower on the exit of each corner. By the time the white flag waved, Bressler had reached the tail tank of Schibilia’s car, and the No. 64B made slight contact with the rear bumper of the race leader as they sped down the backstretch for the last time.

But Schibilia stayed calm under the pressure and held on off the final corner to lead Bressler across the finish line and score the victory. Finishing in third was Jaxson Payero, while Lena Jinno came home fourth.

Results:

1. 45-Logan Schibilia[1]; 2. 64B-Barrett Bressler[2]; 3. 36J-Jaxson Payero[3]; 4. 4-Lena Jinno[4]

Logan Schibilia (No. 45) and Barrett Bressler (No. 64B) ran nose-to-tail during the final lap of Sunday night’s Wingless Junior Sprint A-Main, with Schibilia coming out on top. (Photo Courtesy of Mike Knappenberger Photos)

Logan Schibilia celebrated with Ms. Racing Xtravaganza 2026 — Maddie Tyson — after scoring his first Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway win in the Wingless Junior Sprint “Clash at the Clyde.” (Photo Courtesy of Wayne Hohler Photography)

Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway returns to action on Saturday, Sept. 12 with the second-to-last points race of the 2026 season. The five weekly classes – the EVO Fuel Injection Winged 600s, the Hyper Racing Wingless 600s, the Border Magic 270s, the Yeti Fence Sportsmans, and the Gretna Graphics 125/4 Strokes – will all return to the speedway for some exciting racing action as the championship pictures continue to come into focus. Gates will open at 4 p.m. for the event, with warmups beginning the on-track action at 5:30 p.m. General admission is just $10, and there will be live streaming coverage courtesy of The Cushion for those who are unable to attend.