CONCORD, N.C. — Lance Dewease is no stranger to victory lane in the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Series, with four series victories at Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
But on Friday night, Dewease notched his first World of Outlaws triumph outside of the Keystone State — his fifth-career victory — leading wire to wire in the $12,000-to-win Rite Aid Outlaw Showdown at The Dirt Track @ Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
“Who says we can’t win outside of Pennsylvania?” a jubilant Dewease said in victory lane. “I tell you what, we’ve been struggling all year, and we’re running the full All Star (Circuit of Champions) deal. We love coming here and my owner (Don Owens) loved coming here last year. We just love this place. We might not have the fastest race car, but we took advantage of having a good starting spot.”
The driver from Fayetteville, Pa., started second in the 30-lap feature and quickly jumped to the point in turn two on the first lap ahead of polesitter Joey Saldana and rookie Lucas Wolfe, who quickly passed Saldana for second.
From there, Dewease pulled the No. 30c Dreez Builders/America’s Best Builders J&J away from a fast-closing Wolfe, who held off Saldana and set his sights on Dewease and the top spot. But a hole in the fuel line on Wolfe’s No. 5w Hunter Truck Sales/Peterbuilt Maxim ended any shot at his first World of Outlaws victory while under caution 11 laps into the main event.
On the restart, Dewease opened a huge gap on the rest of the field, as Jac Haudenschild and Saldana scrapped for second while series point-leader Jason Meyers picked his way toward the front from an 11th-place starting spot. Heavy lapped traffic with 10 laps to go allowed Haudenschild to close on Dewease, who continued to make his way through the field on the high side.
Caution waved with six laps to go when Saldana blew a right rear tire in turn four, and Dewease executed another great restart ahead of Meyers, who moved into second as Haudenschild faltered. One lap later, a violent flip by Jason Johnson on the backstretch brought out the red flag and once again halted Dewease’s march toward victory lane.
When the race resumed with just three circuits remaining, Dewease aced the restart and easily took the checkered flag ahead of Meyers, fast- qualifier Shane Stewart, Haudenschild and Craig Dollansky.
“I think the cautions helped me more so than Jason Meyers,” Dewease said. “We were getting pretty loose at the end and the lapped cars were getting side by side, so the cautions let me get into clean track. My car was pretty good for a couple laps in clean air and got looser as we ran, but I figured as long as we didn’t mess up on those restarts, we’d be OK.”
Winning at The Dirt Track held a special meaning for Dewease, especially before a sell-out crowd and a live television audience on Speed.
“Oh, it means a ton. There’s a ton of Pennsylvania people here. There’s a ton of people from all over the country here,” Dewease said. “Randy Grove, who takes care of the race track, I’ve known him since I was little. I grew up at Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway where he worked the track there. It’s just neat to see people down here that I’ve known for a long time.”
The victory also gave Dewease momentum heading into a busy weekend of racing, as the team left Concord for an All Star event in Fremont, Ohio, Saturday night before heading home to Central Pennsylvania for races at Selinsgrove and Port Royal speedways.
With his second-place showing, Meyers extended his point lead over Dollansky to 11.
“I didn’t need that last red. It kind of hurt me a little bit with tire temperature,” Meyers said. “I think that traffic would have helped. You get slowed up and the cushion was pretty treacherous. It’s one of those things that traffic may have helped or traffic may have hurt depending on who got lucky and who got unlucky. You never how that will go. To come from 11th to second, we are happy with that. We gained a few points as well and hopefully we can keep extending that.”