TodayLocal Auto Racing: Dewease opens Lincoln with win
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Article RatingABBOTTSTOWN - Lance Dewease had the best spot in the house with two laps remaining in Saturday's season opening sprint car event at Lincoln Speedway.
Dewease was racing in the runner-up spot behind leader Greg Hodnett and used lapped traffic to his advantage to steal the lead from Hodnett on the final lap and score the win in the Icebreaker 30 in front of a huge wind-chilled opening day crowd in the Pigeon Hills.
Dewease's win was worth $3,500 to the Pete Postupack-owned sprint car team and was his 29th career at Lincoln, moving him into eighth place on the track's all time win list.
“We didn't have the best car today but I'm not really sure who had the best race car to be honest,” said the Fayetteville veteran following his thrilling win. “Whoever got in traffic and got through lapped traffic was the best. Greg was a little bit better than me but those last three laps I found a different line and I could hang with him and I could get off the corner nicer. Then he got messed up with the lapped cars and I got a good run at him. I did not want to let him get back by me because the lapped car cost him the race and I didn't want the lapped car to cost me the race too.”
Josh Wells held the point over Fred Rahmer on lap one as Hodnett, who started seventh and Doug Esh, who started 10th were on the move to the front early. Hodnett was third on lap fourth with Esh in tow.
Cris Eash and Rich Eichelberger spun on lap 10 to close the field as both Hodnett and Esh blew by Rahmer on the restart, after Rahmer had problems with a rut entering the first turn. Dewease also moved Rahmer back a spot to fifth on lap 16 just before Wells ran into T.J. Stutts attempting to put him a lap down. The melee collected Esh and Brian Montieth, who was running sixth.
Hodnett assumed control of the event over Dewease and pulled away from Dewease until a lap 20 caution slowed his pace when Scott Flammer lost power.
On the restart, Rahmer's car suffered rear end mechanical problems causing Kevin Nouse to drive up over top of his car. Keith Kauffman was also involved and his day ended pitside. He was running sixth. Nouse was able to continue.
It was all Hodnett through lap 28 until he encountered lapped traffic as Dewease made a good run to steal the lead on the 29th lap. Hodnett tried to regain the lead but fell a few car lengths short at the finish.
Dewease praised track preparer Fred Putney in victory lane.
“Fred Putney does a heck of a job with this race track and this track is not his fault at all,” Dewease said about the ruts in the corners. “He's one of the best track preparers around. This track just has way to much moisture in it to even race on it.”
Fortunately, no cars flipped but there were several mishaps during the day.
Dewease's win came aboard the Vogele, Hank's Performance Products, Pete's Bridge Street Motors, Bumper Bobs, Rider Racing Engines powered No. 25 Maxim chassis.
“We work every hard trying to find sponsors to help keep this deal going and our sponsors are all a big help,” commented Dewease. “We don't have all the money that people think we do and everyone works very hard to help keep this deal going. We do the best we can with what we have and when we run short, we run short and we'll worry about getting it built back up later.”
Hodnett, who raced despite a 102 degree temperature and battling bronchitis, finished runner-up in Jim and Sandy Kline's J & S Fabrication No. 22 sprinter with Montieth coming back to finish third in Jerry Parrish's Auto Locator No. 21 sprinter. Fourth went to Kevin Nouse in his first race in the BG Motorsports Womex, Inc. No. 12 with fifth going to Steve Buckwalter in Clair and Jan Ritter's Sunny Hill Farms Trucking No. 17B.
Completing the top 10 were Todd Shaffer, Rick Lafferty, Alan Krimes, Cody Darrah and Chris Knopp.
Biglerville's Nat Tuckey won the Spring Thaw 20 for thundercars over Neil Smith, Danny Beard, Mike Slaybaugh and Gino Comi.
Heat races for the 32 cars on hand were won by Wells, Dewease, Shaffer and Rahmer. Double consolation events were won by Lafferty and Davey Sammons.
PIT STOPS: Lincoln returns to action next Saturday with another 410 sprint/thundercar doubleheader. ... Racing was delayed for an hour and a half after rain hit the track just prior to gates opening. The rain lasted about 45 minutes and with the first heat pushing out just before 3:30 p.m. The track did a great job in keeping the show moving after that point.
