MALTA, N.Y. – With the regular season for the DIRTcar big blocks over, Albany-Saratoga Speedway hosted the King of Dirt small block series Friday night, much to the delight of Jessey Mueller.
The young modified driver pulled the pole in the redraw and led flag to flag despite Brett Hearn’s best efforts.
Outsider Anthony Perrego and Albany-Saratoga modified track champion Marc Johnson used a late race restart to dispose of Hearn and they hit the stripe in that order, with Rocky Warner fifth.
Kenny Tremont Jr. led the second five, trailed by Jackie Brown Jr., Chris Johnson, David Schilling and Don Ronca.
Hearn, who started third, actually got the lead away from Mueller on lap three but the yellow waved before the lap was scored, restoring Mueller to the point. After that, Mueller worked the cushion with Hearn trying to get under him in the turns but the leader’s momentum always prevailed.
Meanwhile, Marc Johnson and Tremont were digging their way forward from ninth and eighth, respectively, and both had cracked the top five by halfway. But from there, progress got a lot harder.
It appeared that Mueller would lose the lead and the $3,000 win on lap 30, when he hit turn three so hard that he ran up on a lapped car and bounced off him, but amazingly he barely slowed.
Then, with the lap counter on 32, Elmo Reckner stalled to trigger a final yellow and restart. The green flag brought what looked like the Oklahoma land rush in turns one and two, with cars everywhere.
Perrego got way down by the infield implement tires to shoot by Hearn, with Johnson hot on his tail. Behind them, Tremont and Warner tried to follow and swapped positions when Tremont was caught in the wrong lane. That’s the way they finished.
“What a great race track,” declared Mueller, who always loves having a big cushion to lean on. “The top was good. Poles are hard to come by. I love racing small blocks here and starting up front makes it even better.”
In the Sportsman feature, Andrew Buff bested division kingpin Tim Hartman Jr., Nick Lussier and Brian Calabrese, with Dan Gignon leading William August and Shane Larmon home in the Limited Sportsman finale.