MALTA, N.Y. — Matt DeLorenzo notched his third DIRTcar modified feature of the season Friday night at the Albany-Saratoga Speedway in convincing fashion.
He made a furious charge forward from 12th on the grid, muscled his way past challengers Demetrious Drellos and Mike Mahaney on a lap-10 restart to grab third, then blew frontrunners Rich Ronca and C.G. Morey into the weeds to take command just before halfway of the 35-lapper.
From there, DeLorenzo drove off into the night, eventually besting Mahaney, who finally got by Ronca on the white flag lap, by over a straightaway. Ronca was trailed by Marc Johnson, Drellos, Peter Britten, Jack Lehner, Jack Speshock and Kenny Tremont Jr.
“This car is awesome,” declared DeLorenzo. “I drove eight hours in bumper to bumper traffic from a softball tournament in Maryland to get here and I came to win. I wasn’t going to back down when things got tight there. We’re here to keep the car up front and win races.”
The race was only a lap old when Jessey Meuller’s mount quit in turn two, with most of the field forced to take evasive action to miss him.
Morey again led on the restart but Mahaney, who had lined up 11th, was already fifth and coming fast. He split two cars on lap eight to move to third and seemed headed for the lead until two cars locked together on lap 11, forcing another caution.
DeLorenzo squeezed between Mahaney and the inside jersey barriers in turn one on the restart and for all intents and purposes, the race was over. He quickly disposed of Ronca and Morey and was gone.
“I never touched him but it was really tight,” admitted DeLorenzo. “I wanted to go. Once I got the lead, I just ran the bottom and kept digging. You never know who coming behind you here.”
“I didn’t get the bite I needed on the restart and that hurt,” tipped Mahaney. “I’d made good moves on the original start, which is what you have to do here, beat the other contenders to the front. Then I lost my advantage on the restart, plus the lapped cars were tough towards the end.”
Ironically, Mahaney would use a squeeze play similar to what DeLorenzo ran on him to get second from Ronca, fitting the Adirondack Auto No. 35 between Ronca and a lapped car as they hit turn one under the white flag.
“Matt’s really fast,” tipped Ronca. “I wasn’t gonna stay with him but I thought I might get second until Mahaney squeezed in there right at the end. But it was still better than all the other nights this season. We’d been waiting on parts for a new motor and finally got it last week. It really helped.”
In support class action, Craig Wholey edged Mike Parodi in the limited sportsman feature while Pat Jones snared the $2,000 sportsman finale over Chris Jakubrak, Andrew Buff and Cody Ochs.