THOROLD, Ontario — Greg Panunte survived a barrage of restarts to claim the victory in the Rick’s Delivery DIRTcar Sportsman feature Saturday night at Merrittville Speedway.
Multi-time Hoosier Stock track champion Dave Bailey returned to action and returned to victory lane. Josh Sliter won the Doidge Building Centre’s Mod Lites. Fabio Olivieri and Jordan Fidler earned wins in the Central Fabricating/Glo & Go Tanning Mini Stocks and the James’ Auto V6’s respectively.
Taylor Vanderzanden and Jeff Panunte lead the field to green as the Rick’s Delivery Sportsman got underway in what was a wild feature, to say the least. Multiple yellow flags within the first 10 laps shuffled some of the normal front runners to the back, including defending track champion Brad Rouse.
The largest melee took place off of turn four and saw as many as seven cars wadded up together. As the field settled in, a five-car breakaway of race leader Greg Panunte, Chad Chevalier, Cody McPherson, James Friesen, and Brent Begolo was able to break away from the pack. Despite a close call on the final corner with a lap car, Greg Panunte was able to hold Chevalier to score the win.