WILKES-BARRE PA — Special T Rocks shrugged off a tough trip to win the $50,000 Van Rose Memorial Invitational Pace at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs Saturday night, May 5th, in the process equaling the world record of 1:48.3 for four-year-old altered pacers on a five-eighth mile track. 
The son of Rocknroll Hanover was driven gamely by his trainer Daryl Bier, also co-owner with Forest Bartlett and Joann Dombeck — yanking back into a 3-hole early, then snapping back out with cover after Dial Or Nodial, who was the force behind the opening splits of 26.3 and 53.3, wagered war with uncovered Fred And Ginder through and past the 1:21 three-quarters. Despite the hard usage, Bier still had a ton of horse, and confidently tipped his horse 3-deep late on the turn. The rocket-fast four-year-old took it from there, filling his hopples to the wire to break the Pocono division track mark (1:49.2, Tivoli Hanover, 2008) while equaling Maltese Artist’s world standard for this size of oval (Dover, 2005). The all-age mark for the 5/8s is 1:48, co-set by Artistic Fella, Mister Big, and We Will See, the last-named doing it at Pocono last year. 
Dancin Yankee, kept off the scorching pace, found room in the lane and was up for 2nd at long odds, with Dial Or Nodial, a Breeders Crown competitor last year, hanging tough for the show dough. 
Special T Rocks raised his seasonal record to an enviable 16-9-3-1, with a bankroll already this year of $182,250, and a lifetime sum of $259,964.  
The race honored Clarence Van Rose, a longtime writer for the local Times-Leader newspaper who passed away last year, with Pocono management thoughtfully staging the event for the native of Kentucky on a day a certain special horse race is held in the Bluegrass State. Van saw the Pocono tide rise and fall over the years, and he himself would probably be the first to remark that “his” mile was probably about 15 seconds faster than the average of all the races he witnessed at Pocono over the years.