MALTA, N.Y. — Justin Stone has been improving by leaps and bounds this season and after notching his first Albany-Saratoga Speedway win earlier in the season, he backed it up with another DIRTcar modified score Friday night.
Stone’s win came at the expense of another repeat winner, Jack Lehner, with visitors Felix Roy and Matt Sheppard trailing. Marc Johnson was fifth ahead of 20th starting Peter Britten, Brian Calabrese, Mike Mahaney, Brendan Darragh and Neil Stratton.
The 35-lap feature got off to a rocky start with a melee on the initial break that left point leader Matt DeLorenzo and Jack Speshock locked together off turn four and a handful of others scattered here and there.
With order restored, polesitter Rich Ronca got the drop on his brother, Donnie, on the restart with Stone blasting from sixth to second by lap five. Two laps later he scooted under Rich Ronca exiting turn four, with the lap barely being scored before a second yellow flew.
Lehner, who stood third after lining up tenth, drove under Ronca on the restart but another yellow before the lap was completed negated the pass. He finally disposed of Ronca just before halfway but that was as far as he got.
“We had a couple of restarts after I got to second but they didn’t help,” said Lehner. “I had a better chance of catching Justin in traffic. They worked the track before the feature and it was racey but it also had a lot of character and was very technical. You had to be smart and I wasn’t quite smart enough!”
Behind the leaders, Roy, who came south after a rainout at Granby, Quebec, had advanced from the eighth row and was fifth at halfway with Sheppard, who started 21st, right on his tail. Two more yellows and a brief red for a car on its side on the backstretch delayed their progress slightly but they eventually disposed of third running Marc Johnson, last week’s winner.
“It was a good run from deep in the field,” declared Roy. “I thought we were good enough for second but it didn’t work out. But either way, it beats a rainout in Quebec.”
As for Stone, he offered: “It might have looked easy but wins never are. I saw that Jack was second on the one restart and figured he’d be fast on the bottom but I just kept hitting my marks and he never got to me. I actually liked the restarts because they let everything cool down and helped us stay fast.”
Derrick McGrew Jr led Tim Hartman Jr, Connor Crane, Phil Arnold and Mihael Ballestero home in the Sportsman feature with Caden Dumblewski prevailing over Brandon Emigh, his father Chuck Dumblewski and Kyle Hoard in the Pro Stock finale.
