MINOT, N.D. — Since July 9, Jason Meyers had racked up 14-consecutive top-five finishes, but had gone without a victory.
Meyers returned to victory lane for the seventh time this season in Sunday night’s Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series event at Nodak Speedway.
For Meyers, the $10,000 victory in the finale of the Gerdau Ameristeel Northern Tour was the 25th of his WoO career and places him in a tie with Bobby Allen for 16th on the all-time win list.
“That’s been a hard one to get,” said Meyers. “It seemed like we had it in the bag three or four times and it slipped out. It feels good to finally get that one. These guys have been working very hard. We have had a lot of seconds and thirds here lately. They say the wins will come, and Charlie Garrett (engine builder) keeps telling me every weekend that if we run up front, the wins will come. It finally came here tonight. We are looking forward to this run out west and hopefully we can get a few more out there on our home tracks.”
Meyers lined up on the pole, but Joey Saldana took the early lead. By the ninth lap, Meyers was just a couple of car lengths behind Saldana and looked low off turn four in a bid for the lead.
On the next lap, he looked high off turns one and two, before the contact between Thomas Kennedy and Saldana led to the latter suffering a flat left-rear tire, taking him out of contention while leading. Meyers inherited the lead with Jac Haudenschild second.
“I think the key on a restart is to get off of turn four good and not leave them an opportunity in turn one,” Meyers noted. “I know one time he poked underneath me in (turn) one. If you don’t stumble off turn four, you can get comfortable and get rolling.”
As Meyers began to pull away, Daryn Pittman challenged Haudenschild for second, while the battle for fourth consisted of Kraig Kinser, Craig Dollansky, Steve Kinser, Donny Schatz and Kerry Madsen.
The second caution of the night waved on the 14th lap for Pittman, who had a mechanical problem. The restart saw Dollansky get around Kraig Kinser for third.
The final caution of the night flew with just six laps remaining, giving Meyers some time to cool off his tires and operate in some open race track, though he had to negotiate lapped traffic over the course of the final three laps.
“It was definitely a concern,” he shared when asked about his right-rear tire. “I got really tight in the rubber and knew I was using that tire up, but I had to. I could hear the car behind me working really hard, so I had to run it as hard as I could. Then when you get done and you have burned all the rubber off (the tire), you are worried about weight over the scales. The guys did a heck of a job tonight and hopefully we can keep this ball rolling.”
Dollansky picked up his second-consecutive runner-up finish after Haudenschild was disqualified because his car was too light.
Kraig Kinser earned his best finish of the season in third with point-leader Donny Schatz and Madsen rounding out the top five.