OSWEGO, N.Y. — After a six-car “midnight melee” on a lap-129 restart that left early contender Billy Dunn’s car on top of Anthony Perrego’s mount brought a hush to the Oswego Speedway Super DIRT Week crowd, 16 cars were left to battle it out for the $20,000 winner’s share of the Salute to the Troops 150 purse.
A return to green saw an immediate yellow when Adam Pearson stalled, then Mike Gular brought out another yellow on the ensuing restart. By then the crowd was back to cheering for or against leader Stewart Friesen, who was fighting off the efforts of Mike Maresca to retake the lead the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series star had taken from him a few laps earlier.
Another caution to separate the locked together cars of top-five runners Demetrious Drellos and Billy Decker took Friesen’s lead away again and two laps after the race’s final restart Maresca got alongside Friesen by bouncing through the turn one holes but Friesen hit the next turn even harder than usual and came away with the lead and another big money win.
Maresca was disqualified post-race for being more than 20 pounds light at the scales.
The final order was Friesen, early leader Mat Williamson, Last Chance qualifier Jimmy Phelps, Danny Johnson, Decker, Drelos, Pat Ward, Lance Willix, Darren Smith and Dave Marcuccilli.
“I’m proud to be here,” said Friesen of his first ever 358 DIRT Week win. “I drove down in the middle there once, hit a rut and almost flipped, so I got back on top. I scared my crew half to death. But they built a car that could survive this punishment and deserve a lot of credit!”
Williamson took the lead off the outside pole on the initial break and led easily through the early portion of the race with Tim Sears Jr chasing him. Interminable yellows kept bringing them back to the field and at 50 laps it was Williamson, Sears, Larry Wight, Billy Dunn and Maresca in the top five.
Friesen, Williamson, Wight and a number of other contenders pitted on a yellow in the early 50’s but Sears and Dunn chose to stay out and led the way until Dunn pitted on lap 82 and Sears ten laps later. That put Maresca in command but Friesen had been working in a groove right by the steel wall and on lap 116 he finally managed to drive around Maresca and seal the deal.
A lap later Sears got caught up while flying back through the pack but the most spectacular crash of the wreck and flat tire marred night came when a car caught the first turn holes wrong and bounced off another on the race’s third from last restart, piling cars high and deep in turn one. Amazingly, Dunn’s mount, with the body shredded, was given some quick repairs pitside and returned sans sheet metal to finish the race.
Williamson, obviously disappointed to not close out what looked like his fifth win of the week, said “Hats off to Stew. We were a third-place car until Mike ran out of fuel. We made the right call on when to pit but got beat out of the pits and had to settle for second.”
As for Phelps, he was thrilled to finish third after starting way in the rear, saying “We had a car that kept getting better. My guys made some great changes on our stop and I could move around more. I’m beat up but happy!”
The finish:
- 44-Stewart Friesen[4]; 2. 6-Mat Williamson[2]; 3. 98H-Jimmy Phelps[35]; 4. 83-Danny Johnson[16]; 5. 91D-Billy Decker[5]; 6. 111-Demetrios Drellos[19]; 7. 42P-Pat Ward[14]; 8. 31W-Lance Willix[20]; 9. 12-Darren Smith[32]; 10. M1-David Marcuccilli[8]; 11. 49-Billy Dunn[1]; 12. 28M-Jordan McCreadie[37]; 13. 215-Adam Pierson[25]; 14. 58M-Marshall Hurd[27]; 15. 713-Tommy Collins[34]; 16. 38-Jason Parkhurst[24]; 17. 39-Ryan Bartlett[40]; 18. 2A-Mike Gular[29]; 19. 3J-Marc Johnson[18]; 20. 25-Erick Rudolph[33]; 21. 44P-Anthony Perrego[26]; 22. 99L-Larry Wight[7]; 23. 62X-Tim Sears Jr[3]; 24. 3-Justin Haers[13]; 25. 63R-Billy VanInwegen Jr[23]; 26. 98JS-Rocky Warner[15]; 27. 60-Jackson Gill[17]; 28. 66X-Carey Terrance[22]; 29. 34S-Rusty Smith[21]; 30. 11S-Steve Lewis Jr[39]; 31. 32R-Ronnie Davis[9]; 32. 20K-Kyle Inman[36]; 33. 15-Todd Root[31]; 34. 19-Tim Fuller[11]; 35. 36-Ben Bushaw[30]; 36. 27W-Nick Webb[28]; 37. 55-Matt Woodruff[38]; 38. 8R-Rob Bellinger[6]; 39. 21A-Peter Britten[10]; 40. (DQ) 7MM-Michael Maresca[12]