AKWESASNE, N.Y. — Billy Dunn found a way through the chaotic final laps of the $4,000-to-win, 75-lap DIRTcar 358 Modified Series thriller to win at Mohawk International Raceway. The Watertown driver made a last-lap pass on fellow Watertown native and rival Tim Fuller after the leader Mike Mahaney broke and pulled off with just two laps to go.
Erick Rudolph drove up from his unlucky redraw spot in position number 12 to capture the final step on the podium. After suffering damage to his motor last Friday, Rudolph hooked up with the Junior Welling operation to field a Troyer chassis for the event.
Preston Forbes pulled the number one spot during the top 12 redraw. Forbes looked strong and lead the way until lap 22 when Dunn winged around the top groove and into the lead.
From there Dunn was determined to leave the rest of the field behind. At one point, he split a pair of lapped cars down the backstretch.
“I’ve always found it’s best to be aggressive with lapped traffic,” said Dunn. “I’ve lost a couple of big races here being too easy on lapped cars.”
Dunn lead until lap 40 when the field restarted and Fuller got the advantage.
“I thought right after the heat race that I had a really good car,” Dunn noted. “I knew I had a good car to stay up front with but I wasn’t good on restarts. It took me until halfway down the straightaway to get it cleared out. I fired before him [Fuller] and he just plain beat me to the front. Clean air here is everything.”
While Dunn and Fuller battled it out, Mike Mahaney was reeling them in using the bottom groove of the racetrack. On lap 51, Mahaney made the pass for the lead in turns three and four.
With five laps to go, Mahaney began to show smoke from the right rear. Meanwhile, Fuller and Dunn were cutting in and out of lapped traffic battling each other just like they do every week at Can-Am Speedway.
“Mahaney could run the bottom better than anyone,” said Dunn. “He might have found some speed down there before anyone else. I tried to follow his line on the bottom and I thought I was faster than Fuller. I saw Mahaney get the hole with four or five laps to go. I assume that’s what broke him. He slowed drastically and I had to avoid him to keep from slowing down and giving up time to Fuller.”
Mahaney maintained the lead but on lap 73, the entire right rear of the car seemed to collapse with tire smoke billowing out.
It was then that Dunn pulled the trigger and dove to the bottom under Fuller to take the top spot for the $4,000 win in the first points-paying DIRTcar 358 Modified Series race since 2019.
Robert Delormier took the DIRTcar Sportsman Modified Series North Region victory in the 40-lap, $1,000-to-win at Mohawk International Raceway, using a a late-restart pass on Justin Stone who had lead the entire race up until that point.
FEATURE (75 Laps)
1. 49D-Billy Dunn [4][$7,500]; 2. 19-Tim Fuller [3][$4,000]; 3. 25R-Erick Rudolph [12][$2,500]; 4. 66X-Carey Terrance [9][$1,800]; 5. 98W-Rocky Warner [10][$1,600]; 6. 32R-Ron Davis [11][$1,400]; 7. 45R-Preston Forbes [1][$1,300]; 8. 111D-Demitrios Drellos [15][$1,200]; 9. 28M-Jordan McCreadie [24][$1,100]; 10. 1M-Dave Marcuccilli [8][$1,000]; 11. 60G-Jackson Gill [2][$800]; 12. 83J-Danny Johnson [30][$700]; 13. 31W-Lance Willix [16][$600]; 14. 9M-Tyler Meeks [20][$575]; 15. 55W-Matt Woodruff [7][$550]; 16. 35M-Mike Mahaney [6][$525]; 17. 24M-Derrick McGrew [21][$500]; 18. 74F-Lucas Fuller [23][$500]; 19. 9S-Kristan Smoke [28][$500]; 20. 87M-Darryl Mitchel [17][$500]; 21. 11S-Steven Lewis [27][$]; 22. 23L-Cameron Black [26][$]; 23. 66W-Derek Webb [22][$500]; 24. 15T-Todd Root [19][$500]; 25. 18J-Louie Jackson [5][$500]; 26. 29J-Jeff Sykes [18][$500]; 27. 7mm-Michael Maresca [13][$500]; 28. 36B-Daniel Beachard [29][$500]; 29. 24A-Zach Aubertine [14][$]; 30. 31J-Tom Jock [25][$]