LA FARGEVILLE, N.Y. — A week after scoring his first Sportsman feature win at Can-Am Speedway, Eric Nier found himself back in victory lane Friday night celebrating an even bigger triumph.
Nier and Shane Pecore exited turn four side by side with the checkered flag as their North Star guiding them to the finish.
Pecore already knew that feeling, being the 2016 Series champion. Nier was still searching for it.
As their cars raced toward the same goal, Nier only need 0.097 seconds to find it as he beat Pecore to the line by inches.
“This means a lot with all the good, fast guys in town,” Nier said in Victory Lane.
The race was the fourth in the DIRTcar Sportsman Championship Series and brought 40 of the best Sportsman drivers in the region for the 30-lap feature at Can-Am Speedway.
Taylor Doxtater started on the pole with Richard Murtaugh to his outside. After their first time through turns one and two, the roles were reversed. Murtaugh launched ahead of Doxtater down the backstretch, leaving him to have to fend off attacks from Pecore and Nier.
After lap four, Doxtater began to fade giving up second to Pecore and third to Nier. But before Nier could try to chase down Pecore, Tyler Corcoran was a bullet on a mission.
He chased down Nier and passed him for third on lap 11 and then powered by Pecore for second on lap 14.
Murtaugh caught the back of the field by the halfway point of the race but already had a nearly three second lead on Corcoran. And Corcoran wasn’t given many laps to try and catch Murtaugh as Pecore found another life in the second half of the race. Using a slower car as a pick, Pecore darted by Corcoran while he had to slow for the lap car in front of him.
Corcoran tried to make another run at Pecore but fell victim to Nier who had been lurking in fourth. Nier’s pass came at the perfect time too as the caution came out with two laps to go, grouping the field back together.
When the race resumed, Murtaugh and Pecore arm wrestled through the first corner, sliding up the track, leaving the bottom lane open. An opening Nier didn’t hesitate to take advantage of.
“I went into (turn) one, they slid up and left the bottom open,” Nier said.
He bolted from third to first off turn two as Murtaugh slipped back, putting Pecore in second and Corcoran in third. Pecore had a strong enough car to keep pace with Nier and pull side by side with him through the final corner.
But not strong enough. Nier had enough grip off the bottom lane to pull ahead of Pecore by the finish line.
“It’s amazing,” Nier said.
While Pecore missed out on the win, he was still satisfied with the result.
“We don’t come here very often, maybe a couple times a year, so to finish in the top three against some of the locals… Tyler is really good and Eric is really good here,” Pecore said. “Just really proud of our team. We keep working on this car. This place is so technical and a little bit different from home, so it is hard to get a hold of.
“I really had a shot there on the last restart. I rolled him good there going into (turn) one and [Murtaugh] kind of squeezed me up to far and let Eric go by. He shot himself in the foot out of a good position, but we’ll take a top three against the best Series guys.”
Corcoran came home third to round out the night’s podium.
“I had the top cooking,” Corcoran said. “I took a couple weeks off from racing and got this thing dialed in… Man, this thing was good. I just kept sliding.”
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 34-Eric Nier[4]; 2. 0-Shane Pecore[3]; 3. 64-Tyler Corcoran[6]; 4. 410-Mike Fowler[7]; 5. 33-Richard Murtaugh[2]; 6. 18-Gavin Eisele[8]; 7. 35B-Brennan Moore[10]; 8. 32RS-Ryan Shanahan[17]; 9. 03-Joshua Jock[5]; 10. 17N-Owen Nier[12]; 11. FOX28-Tyler Stevenson[13]; 12. 30-Nicholas Root[11]; 13. 2-Taylor Doxtater[1]; 14. 91-Josh Reome[19]; 15. 89-Dylan Madsen[14]; 16. 7-Cody McPherson[18]; 17. 5K-Kyle Devendorf[9]; 18. 52-Jessica Power[21]; 19. 9-Logan Brown[15]; 20. 38-Zach Sobotka[25]; 21. 707-Greg Brinklow[22]; 22. 1D-Paul DeRuyter[24]; 23. 4-Emmett Waldron[20]; 24. 54-Brady Howard[16]; 25. 35D-Dylan Moore[23]; 26. 15-Adam Leslie[27]; 27. 6-Cody Manitta[28]; 28. 16X-Savannah Laflair[29]; 29. 18H-Brian Harber[26]; 30. (DNF) 21-Ryan Barrett[30]