In life, we run into certain circumstances that are constants. Everybody knows about the death-and-taxes one. The sun coming up in the morning, hopefully, is another. And in Pennsylvania, another rock-solid given in this world is that Lance Dewease is going to be in the hot seat of a sprint car, up on the wheel, and winning races.
At age 59. You look at that number and you’re startled for a minute when you realize how long Dewease has been a continuous, triumphant presence on the Pennsylvania scene.
How important is this guy? Dewease is enshrined in the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Iowa, as a driver. He’s a three-time winner of the Williams Grove National Open. The Tuscarora 50 at Port Royal Speedway has been his seven times. He is a three-time champion of Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek.
Twenty times, he has defeated the World of Outlaws, with another 46 victories scored against the All-Star Circuit of Champions. He has also claimed sprint car wins in Florida, Ohio, Michigan and even a weekly show at Knoxville Raceway. Based on his calculations, Dewease’s win total comes to 376 features in a career that began in the early 1980s. Incidentally, his first win aboard a sprint car came in yet another place, Hagerstown, Md., back in 1986.
By any measure, that’s a Hall of Fame career. Which Dewease intends to continue, even if it’s on a necessarily reduced basis for a racer of his seniority.
“I’m with Barry Shearer now at Shearer Motorsports,” he explained. “Billy Dietrich was in the car before I got in it. I think we’ll probably do 40 or 50 races this year, Port Royal, Williams Grove, and all the local big shows. I really don’t think we’re going to be traveling much. That’s kind of what I’d been doing the last six or seven years in Donald Kreitz’s car, probably only running about 40 shows a year.
“At my age, it’s hard to do 80 races a year, or 90. It just takes a toll on your body, and it doesn’t recover like it used to. I can be at 40 or 50 races and stay fresh, so you don’t get beat up as much. When you show up, you’re ready to go.”
One could make a strong argument that Dewease was born ready. Now living in Fayetteville, in south-central Pennsylvania, Dewease dates his career to the early 1980s when he started out driving 270cc micro sprints and by his own admission, “never won a race.” Undeterred, he did the same thing any number of young Keystone Staters have decided to try, moving up.
“The options back then were super sportsman and sprint cars,” he explained. “The super sportsman are great but they can get 80 cars a night, so it’s really tough. We had a sprint car that my father, my brother and a friend or so could work on, and back then, you could still do it on a workingman’s paycheck.”
Dewease migrated to a smorgasbord of the very best sprint cars that the brutally competitive Pennsylvania circuit had to offer. He did a single race in the cattle car of Bob Weikert before spending time with the late Carl Harz, the late Al Hamilton and the Dietz family. In a real sense, Dewease’s Hall of Fame success can be traced to two rides: First, the famed “Brickmobile” of Hall of Fame car owner Walter Dyer, in which Dewease enjoyed years of dominance at Port Royal.
In his Hall of Fame induction, which came as part of Knoxville’s Class of 2018, Dewease singled out Dyer as one of the great influences on his life, and his career, stating that “if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be where I’m at. He took a shot and gave me my first big break with a good car and a good owner. For seven and a half years, it was a good relationship and I owe everything to him.”
The other was the robin’s egg-blue No. 69k of Kreitz, another Hall of Famer, with the Hall of Fame mechanic Davey Brown Sr. handling mechanical matters. Before he exited the ride, Dewease combined with Kreitz and Brown to form a powerhouse team that scarfed up victories across Pennsylvania despite the fact all three principals wanted to run a lighter schedule of 40 to 50 races a year. It’s still a viable plan for a racer, even one approaching the eventual end of his driving days.
“In Pennsylvania, you take someone like Anthony Macri or Danny Dietrich and they run 100 races a year, 85 percent of them in Pennsylvania, with a lot of good-paying, big shows,” Dewease said. “You’ve got two at Port Royal paying 50-something and another one that pays $75,000 to win. The National Open pays $75,000 to win. There’s also six Outlaw shows here and another six or seven High Limit shows around Pennsylvania. It’s always been a viable thing here because you can race so much and not really have to travel.”
To achieve proper perspective on Dewease’s career, perhaps it’s best to ask another Hall of Famer. In this case, it’s Alan Kreitzer, who went from driving race cars to being an acclaimed promoter at Keystone tracks including the Grove and Silver Spring Speedway. He’s had a unique view of the entirety of Dewease’s exploits.
“Lance is really one of the greats in Pennsylvania,” Kreitzer said. “The races he’s won, the big races, is really what sets him apart. He kind of had a resurgence with Donald Kreitz, and when he got hooked up with them, it was like a whole new world.
“I think the thing that makes Lance stand out is the fans, and the way they react to him,” Kreitzer continued. “A lot of guys, when they win a lot, people become polarized. You love ‘em or hate ‘em. Lance never got that. He was always extremely popular with the fans no matter how much he won. I think a lot of it is because of the way he represented our area in the big events against the invaders. Lance was truly one of Pennsylvania’s chosen ones. The fans loved him, and they still do.”
Dewease skipped the annual odyssey to Florida this year, just because. He’s beginning to get his son, Cole, acclimated to micros in anticipation of his eventual transition to sprint cars. Dewease is both satisfied and proud of owning one of central Pennsylvania’s most historically successful driving careers.
“I’m a pretty laid-back guy but I’m just always trying to win and be better,” he said. “I’ve raced against some of the best drivers to have ever driven a sprint car: Steve Kinser, Sammy Swindell, Fred Rahmer, Greg Hodnett.
“What’s neat about my career is that I raced against Steve Kinser, best sprint car driver who ever lived, and against Kyle Larson, who’s the best driver I’ve ever seen. I’ve raced against some of the best drivers to ever race sprint cars. It’s been good.”
