JAMAICA, Va. — Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series point-leader Jason Meyers continued his fast start to the season with a dominant victory, as the series made its inaugural visit to Virginia Motor Speedway Saturday night.
The California native led 29 of the 30 laps to pocket $10,000 for the 25th A-Feature victory of his career, holding off a determined Daryn Pittman. It was Meyers’s fifth victory of the season and his third on a half-mile oval.
“We feel great,” Meyers noted. “Everyone who is behind this team is giving 100 percent right now. To come out and put up these kinds of results is what we work hard each day to do. It will be nice to call home and let everyone know how we did. Hopefully, we keep this up. It’s a long summer, but I think we are up to the challenge.”
The race began with Meyers darting to the lead, with Pittman and Joey Saldana chasing him. Early in the race, Meyers opened several comfortable leads in open track, with a number of drivers closing in on him as he entered lapped traffic.
“Something that is neat about coming to new facilities is that everyone is on the same playing field,” said the driver of the GLR Investments KPC. “We just kind of compared it to some places we have been and made changes throughout the night to get the car better. It has some characteristics of its own and that makes the track different. We stayed after it and tried to make the car better each time we came on and off the race track.”
Meyers had a tense moment on the sixth lap while pacing the field, as Tony Bruce, Jr. tagged the wall in the second turn and got upside down right in front of him.
“It’s always a little nerve wracking when you get to traffic,” he noted. “We were able to avoid him by taking another line. You never know how those things are going to go. Sometimes they bite you. We were able to get through that one tonight and were able to win the race.”
Meyers used a strong restart to again open a lead over Pittman, who was in search of his first win of the season. Pittman closed on the leader late in the race, as Meyers was bottled up in lapped traffic, though he could not quite catch the leader.
“The car was good,” said Pittman. “We were in contention for a win and there are things to build on. It’s been a frustrating year so far and we have a tough uphill climb. The team is capable of it. There is no doubt about that. We have proved that the last couple of years. We just have to go out and try to find victory lane. We feel like we are on the right track and are fairly close.”
Meyers held a comfortable lead at the halfway point of the 30-lap contest, though he was bottled up by a couple of lapped cars, giving Pittman the opening he needed to challenge for the lead. On the 17th lap, Meyers slipped high exiting the second turn, and that was the opening that Pittman needed to dive under him for the lead. The lead was short lived, as Meyers battled back on the next lap to retake the point, which he would not relinquish the rest of the way.
Sam Hafertepe, Jr. also put himself in the mix late in the race, as he had one of the fastest cars on the track down the stretch, as he sliced his way through lapped traffic en route to a career-best third-place finish.
Jac Haudenschild earned his second-consecutive fourth-place finish, while Joey Saldana was fifth.