MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — Lance Dewease keeps adding to an already illustrious career.
The National Sprint Car Hall of Famer won the Mitch Smith Memorial on Friday night at Williams Grove Speedway to become the winningest driver in Pennsylvania Sprint Car Speedweek history.
Dewease pocketed his 31st series victory, breaking a stalemate with Fred Rahmer. The driver of the Kreitz Racing No. 69k pocketed a cool $15,000, too, and earned his 103rd win at the famed half-mile speedway.
“We were pretty good all night,” Dewease said. “We’ve had fun since I got in this car. If we don’t win, there’s no pointing fingers, none of that. We’re trying to win races. If we don’t win, we go to work. I go to work as a driver, we go to work [as a team]. Whatever it is, we do whatever it takes to win races. We’re fortunate enough to do it.”
Dewease and crew have cashed in on that aforementioned fortune recently, having won five times in the last nine races and four of the last five at Williams Grove.
Only Dylan Cisney was faster than Dewease in qualifying, his second-place time of 18.267 seconds compared to Cisney’s 18.156 good enough to put him in another redraw after the heat race.
While Matt Campbell landed the pole for the 30-lap main event, Dewease had the next best starting position.
Campbell raced to an early two-second lead, finding speed early around the top. Dewease, meanwhile, was still trying to find the right line in turns three and four. As Campbell closed on the tail-end of the field, Dewease, too, closed on the leader.
With dirty air forcing Campbell off the top, Dewease pounced through the middle, and settled in. The Williams Grove all-time wins leader executed the race-winning slide job in turns three and four on lap 11.
“I just stayed patient,” Dewease said. “How the track has been the last two weeks has been the most raceable it’s been. There’s a top to run on and a bottom to run on. When Danny [Dietrich] got to second, he’s the guy that can run the bottom. He’s also the guy that can run the top.”
Dietrich powered to second shortly after Dewease took the top spot and stayed within relative striking distance the rest of the way. Three restarts over the final eight laps made Dewease strategize for a possible Dietrich charge, though it never came.
Dietrich had to settle for his third straight podium finish, still in search of win No. 1 in PA Speedweek.
“We’re fast again,” Dietrich said. “We just can’t catch a break with Lance. … I did everything I could.”
Dietrich extends his PA Speedweek lead to 50 points as the series heads to Port Royal Speedway on Saturday before it wraps up on Sunday at Selinsgrove Speedway.
Justin Peck finished third and is fourth in the PA Speedweek title race, now 118 points off the pace. Ryan Smith and Lucas Wolfe rounded out the top five.
The finish:
Feature (30 laps): 1. Lance Dewease. 2. Danny Dietrich. 3. Justin Peck. 4. Ryan Smith. 5. Lucas Wolfe. 6. Daryn Pittman. 7. Paul McMahan. 8. Mike Wagner. 9. Rico Abreu. 10. Brent Marks. 11. Kyle Reinhardt. 12. Devon Borden. 13. Chad Trout. 14. TJ Stutts. 15. Sam Hafertepe Jr. 16. Robbie Kendall. 17. Matt Campbell. 18. Freddie Rahmer. 19. Brandon Rahmer. 20. Dylan Cisney. 21. Anthony Macri. 22. Steve Buckwalter. 23. Justin Whittall. 24. Chase Dietz.