WOODHULL, N.Y. — New Jersey driver Robbie Stillwaggon made the long haul to Woodhull Raceway worth the drive as he landed in Empire Super Sprints victory lane for the first time Saturday night.
Jordan Poirier led the field to green alongside Stillwaggon, and although it looked like Stillwaggon would jump out to an early lead, Poirier fought back and was scored as the leader on lap one as the field crossed the line.
A lap-six yellow for a spinning Kyle Drum off turn four slowed the field, and as a result Poirier’s lead over Stillwaggon was erased for the ensuing restart. When the green flag dropped, Stillwaggon was able to get by Poirier and hold his position this time, setting sail away from the rest of the field.
Meanwhile, fifth-starting Chuck Hebing had been slowly making up ground on the leaders and worked his way into the top two on lap 10. Just four laps later, however, Hebing would jump the cushion and surrender second to the No. 53 of Shawn Donath.
Early season winner Jason Barney looked to be having a solid top five night until a flat tire sidelined his efforts with two laps remaining.
On what would be the final restart of the night, Donath made a valiant attempt to get by Stillwaggon, but ultimately came up one spot short with Stillwaggon collecting the win and the $2,000 winner’s share.
“I’ve had two seconds here before, I think I lost it on the last lap to Barney once, but it’s great to finally get it done,” said Stillwaggon. “I knew he (Donath) was going to be tough to beat, we got into each other and I hate it.”
Consistency has been the name of the game so far in 2023 for Shawn Donath, and Saturday was no exception as he finished second for the second time in as many nights on the weekend.
“I have the best crew chief, I can tell you that,” said Donath. “We made a couple adjustments before we came out and we could go anywhere we wanted.”
Rounding out the podium was Poirier, rebounding after a hard crash Friday at Freedom.
“The car was really good, I think clean air was important so on that restart we stalled out a bit,” said Poirier. “We’ll take a third-place finish after last night and the weekend we had.”
The finish:
Feature (25 laps): 1. #89-Robbie Stillwaggon[2]; 2. #53-Shawn Donath[7]; 3. 28-Jordan Poirier[1]; 4. #45-Chuck Hebing[5]; 5. #5D-Jacob Dykstra[8]; 6. #47-Kyle Drum[10]; 7. #35-Jared Zimbardi[6]; 8. #4P-Chase Moran[13]; 9. #13T-Trevor Years[11]; 10. #10-Jeff Cook[14]; 11. #22-Jonathan Preston[4]; 12. #36-Logan Crisafulli[16]; 13. (DNF) #87-Jason Barney[9]; 14. (DNF) #11-Ryan Stillwaggon[12]; 15. (DNF) #7C-Dylan Swiernik[3]; 16. (DNF) #41-Dalton Rombough[15]