BARBERVILLE, Fla. — For the second night in a row, Larry Wight was showered in confetti on the frontstretch of Volusia Speedway Park at the DIRTcar Nationals presented by Bozard Ford.
Wight started outside the front row and beat Stewart Friesen and Erick Rudolph to the checkered flag.
Wight has won three of the last five Super DIRTcar Series races at the half-mile oval.
“This car has just been on a rail,” said Wight. “We were fortunate enough to be able to put the same set up as we did last night. The track didn’t lay rubber or anything and we were still glued to it. We’ve got something rolling so I hope we can keep it going for the rest of the week. Hopefully, it will transfer to something up north.”
The 30-lap feature began with Wight hard on the gas on the outside of pole-sitter Rick Laubach. Wight passed him on the opening lap with the same move he made the night before on Brett Hearn. Right now, Wight and his team have the car right where he wants it.
“The car is good enough that I don’t even have to run the cushion. It’s a wall over in three and four,” noted Wight. To try and run that lap after lap without losing the nose or hurt the car is almost impossible. We were able to run about halfway below it, right on the crown where it kind of flattens off. It seemed to like it.”
Friesen started fifth and quickly made his way to Wight’s tail. The race ran green until lap 13 when Tuesday’s winner and former Gator Championship point leader Mat Williamson broke a left rear shock. The Buzz Chew Racing team quickly changed the broken part and sent the No. 88 back into the fray where he made his way back up to 15th.
Friesen then lined up beside Wight on the lap 13 restart.
“Any time you have Stewie right behind you, you don’t want to see a restart,” Wight said. “He’s phenomenal on restarts and he can usually make stuff happen. The farther I could keep him behind me the better.”
Friesen has probably had his fill of staring down Wight’s exhaust pipe, but his Halmar Racing team is adept at giving Friesen what he needs to win.
“These guys have been working really hard,” Friesen said. “We’ve just got nothing for ’em there. We’re going to take the day off and go run Daytona tomorrow and think about what we are going to do to this thing for Saturday because we are lacking a couple of tenths there and it showed. We’ll put it back together and come up with something.”
Rudolph is ready to take a couple of steps up the podium.
“We had similar speed to Friesen,” Rudolph said. “We’ve had a decent car. I’m proud of our consistency this week. We’ve got two more races here and I’m looking forward to those. The team is really driving here.”
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 99L-Larry Wight [2][$3,000]; 2. 44-Stewart Friesen [5][$1,500]; 3. 25R-Erick Rudolph [4][$1,000]; 4. 7MM-Michael Maresca [3][$800]; 5. 20-Brett Hearn [7][$700]; 6. 91-Billy Decker [12][$650]; 7. 9S-Matt Sheppard [8][$600]; 8. 44P-Anthony Perrego [10][$550]; 9. 49-Billy Dunn [18][$500]; 10. 111-Demetrios Drellos [6][$450]; 11. 98H-Jimmy Phelps [11][$400]; 12. 21A-Peter Britten [19][$375]; 13. 42P-Pat Ward [14][$350]; 14. 7-Rick Laubach [1][$325]; 15. 88-Mat Williamson [15][$300]; 16. 19M-Jessey Mueller [9][$275]; 17. 30-Ronnie Johnson [22][$250]; 18. 19-Tim Fuller [21][$250]; 19. 23-Kyle Coffey [17][$250]; 20. 46-Jeremy Smith [13][$250]; 21. 83-Brian Swartzlander [20][$250]; 22. 3-Justin Haers [16][$250]; 23. 32-Jim Rasey [24][$250]; 24. 4-Andy Bachetti [25][$250]; 25. 48T-Dave Rauscher [26][$250]; 26. 1-Billy Pauch [23][$250]