PEVELY, Mo. — Jason Meyers has had strong starts to the season in the past, but nothing like the consistency and strength that he and his team have shown this year with the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series.
After winning a thrilling battle with Craig Dollansky Saturday night at I-55 Raceway that saw him win by just mere inches on the track, Meyers now has three wins in the first five WoO events this season driving the GLR Investment KPC, including two consecutively.
“It’s amazing the kind of start we have had this year,” said Meyers, who now has 21 career WoO victories. “It’s certainly something we worked hard all winter for and hoped to achieve. It’s something that usually is very hard to achieve and all of the hard work is paying off now. These guys are working hard day in and day out.”
Dollansky led from the pole, with Meyers jumping from eighth to fourth on the first lap. The first red flag of the race came when Billy Alley flipped on lap seven. Dollansky continued to set the pace, while Meyers battled Saldana and Shaffer for second.
Meyers finally grabbed second on the 23rd lap of the third-mile oval, and one circuit later, the red flag appeared again when Kraig Kinser got upside down after a mechanical failure.
Dollansky encountered heavy traffic as the laps wound down, opening the door for Meyers, who took the lead exiting the fourth turn on the high side of the track on the 32nd lap. After opening a few car-length lead, Meyers was then bottled up in traffic, giving Dollansky a shot at him.
As the pair took the white flag, Dollansky again used the momentum on the top side of the third-mile to make a charge for the win, coming up just inches short at the line.
Saldana finished third, with Shaffer and Jac Haudenschild rounding out the top five.
“We have a long season ahead of us and we’ll keep pushing and try to stay ahead,” Meyers noted. “We have one goal this year, and that is to win the championship. There is a lot of great competition out here, and it won’t be an easy task. This is a good start for that. We have a good platform, and hopefully, we can continue to build on that.”
Dollansky said lapped traffic cost him the race.
“We got held up by a lot of those lapped cars and it really cost us some time and that allowed the (No.) 14 to get by us,” said Dollansky. “It was a good strong run for us. Once I went to the top, we got beside him there at the checkers. It would have been nice to have had another lap to get back there.”