ANTHONY MACRI
THE PA POSSE’S BRIGHTEST LIGHT
Photo: Paul Arch
a main FEATURE
SPRINTS
By Doug Kennedy
AT 22 YEARS OF AGE, Sprint Car driver Anthony Macri of Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, has been making tremendous waves over the past two seasons and is one of the brightest stars to emerge from the state of Pennsylvania in several seasons. Macri used the strangeness of the 2020 COVID season to get some laps nationally while waiting for Pennsylvania to open up and all of that experience helped him to nine wins that season and put him on the map with national audiences and put travelers on their heels when they came calling on his home tracks. In 2021, Macri continued to grow on the track and in reputation nationally and garnered 11 feature wins this season and continued to travel outside the Keystone State to gain valuable experiences at another Knoxville Nationals and his first Trophy Cup, which was his introduction to Golden State fans at Tulare Thunderbowl. Macri’s first ever sprint car win came at Lincoln Speedway in Abbottstown,
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Pennsylvania, on June 3, 2017. Macri battled Glenndon Forsythe throughout the race for the win. “Honestly, it felt unreal. I never thought our first 410 win would come in my very first year of competing,” Macri said. “I was pretty proud about it.” Last year, he reached another apex when he won the Keith Kauffman Classic on June 24th at Port Royal and beat the red hot Kyle Larson in the process. Macri started on the pole and never lost the lead, pocketing $6,000 for the win. “I felt like it was the turning point for us,” Macri related. “At the time, we weren’t really struggling, but we weren’t as good as we wanted to be. It gave us confidence to keep going and we are feeling better about the tracks we go to now. It felt unreal to beat somebody like him (Larson). It gives me the feeling that I have the potential to be a good driver.” “When I was a youngster, I would go to the racetrack and actually fell in love with racing,” Macri said. To help support his desire, Macri’s father, Nick, bought
DIRT EMPIRE MAGAZINE • ISSUE 07 - 2021
his twelve year old boy, a micro sprint. Anthony won five races in that car. By 2016, Nick moved his son up to a 410 sprint and he has been there ever since. He loves the tracks in his home state, including Port Royal Speedway. “It’s an awesome facility. You can tell they put their heart and soul into the facility. The track people will thank you for coming. I think the racing surface is the best in Pennsylvania. It’s slick and always allows the racers to put on a good show,” said Macri. He also enjoys Friday nights at Williams Grove Speedway. “It’s a track with a strong tradition and a really nice facility. The racing surface is more of a slicker side and me being a fan of the slicker track, well that suits me just fine.” With all that being said, Macri says he also enjoys the smaller tracks like Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania and Hesston Speedway in Hesston, Pennsylvania. His dad, however, is partial to one particular track in Pennsylvania. “I like
