ELDON, Mo. — Dylan Westbrook was in full pursuit of Matt Covington over the final five laps of Saturday’s A-Feature at Lake Ozark Speedway, as the Hills Racing No. 47x and Missile Motorsports No. 95 went slide for slide.
Westbrook’s last-lap slider through the first and second turns was what ultimately secured his third career victory with the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series.
Taking off sixth on the grid, Westbrook raced to the podium on lap eight.
After chasing Wayne Johnson through numerous restarts, Westbrook finally got the position on lap 12. It took four more laps for Westbrook to spot Covington through lap traffic, but Westbrook was on the No. 95 by lap 16.
Westbrook was wheel-to-wheel with Covington a lap later, with a difference of 0.001 seconds. Playing traffic like chess, Covington protected the open line to pull back to a half-second advantage with five laps to go.
With Westbrook clearing clean track between himself and Covington, the gap closed rapidly with a difference of only 0.283 seconds on lap 21. The two closed on another group of slower cars with three to go and Covington’s breathing room was dashed as the pair raced each other with two to go.
Forced to the bottom, coming to the white flag, Westbrook shoved the nose of the No. 47x under Covington, forcing him to navigate the middle groove.
Holding by .051 seconds at the wave of the white flag, the run into turns one and two saw Dylan drive hard to the bottom. Clearing Covington and the slower car, the No. 47x hustled the cushion through the final two turns to win by .764 seconds.
Matt Covington settled for second with Wayne Johnson barely holding onto third behind him, following contact between the No. 2c and Blake Hahn’s No. 52 off the second turn of the final lap.
Hahn ended up fourth, with Ryan Timms rolling from 11th to complete the top five.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 47X-Dylan Westbrook[6]; 2. 95-Matt Covington[2]; 3. 2C-Wayne Johnson[3]; 4. 52-Blake Hahn[7]; 5. 5T-Ryan Timms[11]; 6. 51B-Joe B Miller[12]; 7. 98P-Miles Paulus[1]; 8. 24-Garet Williamson[17]; 9. 36-Jason Martin[18]; 10. 2-Chase Porter[16]; 11. 97-Scotty Milan[9]; 12. 55B-Brandon Anderson[5]; 13. 1X-Tim Crawley[23]; 14. 45X-Kyler Johnson[13]; 15. 50K-Kyle Bellm[21]; 16. 11A-Austin O’Neal[10]; 17. 86-Timothy Smith[14]; 18. 187-Landon Crawley[20]; 19. 77-Jack Wagner[15]; 20. 21-Gunner Ramey[8]; 21. 8M-Kade Morton[19]; 22. 10-Landon Britt[24]; 23. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[4]; 24. 22S-Slater Helt[22].