THOROLD, Ontario – Greg Panunte found himself back in victory lane Saturday night as he scored the win in the Rick’s Delivery DIRTcar Sportsman feature at Merrittville Speedway.
The Rick’s Delivery DIRTcar Sportsman feature saw Panunte start on the pole with Taylor Vanderzanden starting second on the outside. Brad Rouse started the race shot out of a cannon, moving from 10th on the grid to inside the top five within the first two laps.
Rouse would soon find himself contending for the lead and taking the point from Panunte after some masterful restarts. A late caution with fewer than 10 to go erased Rouse’s 1.2-second advantage, which gave Panunte one more shot to get back-to-back sportsman wins. After Rouse looked to have another masterful restart, it was deemed illegal and the field was lined up once again.
This time Panunte had the restart of his life from the outside of the front row and was able to find enough to speed pass and pull away from Brad Rouse who would have to settle for second, as Panunte won consecutive races in the Rick’s Delivery DIRTcar Sportsman class at Merrittville.
In other action, Dave Bailey won the Hoosier Stock feature. Third-generation driver Brent Begolo won the RONA/Doidge Builders Mod Lites main event. Fabio Olivieri won the Central Fabricating/Glo & Go Tanning 4 Cylinder feature while Josh Dmytrow won the James’ Auto V6 feature.