OSWEGO, N.Y. — Devon Camenga leaned on a little experience from his past two podium runs during Super DIRT Week at Oswego Speedway and charged to victory Friday in the DIRTcar Pro Stock I Love NY 50.
From the pole position, Camenga quickly slid to the topside of a track that continued to turn more slick with every lap, and he survived five cautions before fending off Pete Stefanski down the stretch for his first Super DIRT Week victory after a couple of third-place runs the previous two years.
“In my experience here there’s a little crest in Turns 1 and 2 that kind of starts to lip up as you go up the hill and last year I had a lot of success, I put my right sides in it and it helped me drive off of Turn 2,” said Camenga. “I know we shined off everywhere and a lot of guys were saying I should start on the bottom, but I felt like I didn’t have the gear to start on the bottom and I figured once I got rolling and kept that outside, even if we were two-wide going into Turn 3, I felt like I really had a good enough car and enough side bite to stick it in there.”
A restart with 10 to go raised the intensity. Stefanski worked past Rich Crane for second on Lap 43 after Crane had spent the entire race trying to chase down Camenga. From there Stefanski edged closer and closer until the checkered flag finally waved with him just off Camenga’s tail. A week after a massive crash at Fulton Speedway forced Stefanski into backup car owned by fellow racer Chris Stalker, his runner-up finish on Friday was enough to clinch his sixth DIRTcar Pro Stock Series crown.
“It feels awesome, I think they’re harder to get nowadays,” said Stefanski. “The competitiveness of the class, the advancement of the class. You know we’re all within a couple of tenths between the first and 20th car. To be able to do that, it’s really hard to finish up front every week compared to when I won back in 2006 or 2007. One bad finish can take you out of it. Today you’ve got to run up front or you’re not going to have a chance. The Stalker crew put me in a really good spot to have an incredible racecar and if it wasn’t for them I would not be here.”
For Camenga, his driving style played perfectly into the track’s smooth and slick surface. By Lap 30 he had pulled away by nearly a straightaway over Crane and the rest of the field before a caution bunched everyone for a Lap 34 restart. Camenga and Crane raced side-by-side into Turns 1 and 2 before Camenga edged away again to the lead as Jocelyn Roy moved to third ahead of Stefanski and Marc Lalonde.
“I’m not a guy who’s going to throw the car in super hard, kick it sideways and rooster tail it all the way around,” said Camenga, who earned $3,000 for the victory. “I’ve just never been that style of driver, so I like racing in the black slick. We race in it a lot in upstate New York where it just slicks off. I really like keeping the tires underneath me, so I pride myself in that and having that egg under the throttle pedal. I just hit my marks and tried to keep it straight. I started getting a little loose coming off of Turn 4, I don’t know if I was throttle happy or what. I didn’t hear anybody, I just felt like the race was so long and then the last nine laps went really quick.
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t look out the side, I looked right down the track. I figured if they were going to beat me, they were either going to have to go around me or underneath me and if that’s the case then they would have deserved to win.”
Following the final caution for Luke Horning in Turn 4, Stefanski swept past Crane, who held on to finish third ahead of Kim Duell and Roy.
“I was doing all I could do to hang on there,” said Crane.
