SPARTA, Ky. — It didn’t take Dillon Battistini long to race to the front in Saturday night’s Firestone Indy Lights Series race. He moved from fourth starting spot to take the lead from Raphael Matos on the second lap and won his fourth race this season Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway.
However, it was his first victory since Iowa in June.
“I knew it was going to be hard to pass on this track,” Battistini said. “I have to admit, (Raphael) Matos has been really strong in qualifying and practice throughout the weekend. I knew there was a chance at getting him at the start, and luckily, I pulled that off and was able to hang on. I don’t know why he wasn’t behind me. Maybe something happened, but I don’t know the story yet. I still had to fight off some really strong competition.
“Luckily, we were strong enough to hang on to the lead.”
Battistini defeated James Davison, the series’ most recent winner at Mid-Ohio last month.
“I think we definitely deserved to be up there,” Davison said. “We’ve been strong on ovals lately. A strong oval finish has been important to me, and that hasn’t been something I’ve been able to do so far this season, for one reason or the other. I just want to thank Sam Schmidt Motorsports, Lifelock, and my fellow Australian engineer I’ve been working with this weekend, Tim Neff. I could have maybe taken a bit of a chance by jumping Dillon (Battistini) on the restart, but I didn’t want to end up losing a position, so we held on to a safe second.”
During Battistini’s recent winless stretch, he had fallen from first to sixth in points, but with the win moved to third.
Arie Luyendyk, Jr. finished third, his fourth podium finish of the year.
“It was a great race,” Luyendyk said. “All of our cars are strong in the front. I think it just came down to track position. Dillon (Battistini) got a great start. He snuck up on me on the inside. I didn’t expect him to be there, and he got the lead and it was hard to get around him after that. It’s the third podium in a row on ovals for me, so I feel pretty good. We just need to get the first place. Hopefully, that comes at Infineon or Chicago.”
Point-leader Richard Antinucci finished fourth. Brent Sherman was fifth.
The finish:
Dillon Battistini, James Davison, Arie Luyendyk, Jr., Richard Antinucci, Brent Sherman, Raphael Matos, Sean Guthrie, Jonathan Klein, Bobby Wilson, Robbie Pecorari, Daniel Herrington, Logan Gomez, Cyndie Allemann, Franck Perera, Micky Gilbert, Ana Beatriz, Mike Potekhen, J.R. Hildebrand, P.J. Abbott, C.R. Crews, Christina Orr, Pablo Donoso, Jeff Simmons, Travis Gregg.