WAVERLY, Ohio – Matt Westfall came into Saturday’s Buckeye Outlaw Sprint Series race at Atomic Speedway looking to put the cherry on top of a championship season.
He did exactly that, taking the lead in the first turn of the 25-lap feature for the non-winged sprint car series and surviving a one-lap dash to the checkers to collect the victory.
“Well, Landon (Simon) left the door open on the bottom so I had to shoot through there,” said Westfall of the opening lap. “I got a good start, we had a good night, and we got the win, that’s all that matters. I really like this place, I have won a few modified races and several sprint car races here, I should have won a couple late model races as well but didn’t. This is one of my favorite places to race.”
Westfall got through a gap at the bottom into turn one on the opening lap to emerge as the leader. As the field jockeyed for position through turn three Korbyn Hayslett’s car flipped multiple times, resulting in a red flag.
A 20-minute delay followed as an ambulance was dispatched.
When racing resumed, Westfall was in his own league. By lap 10 he was lapping cars at the back of the field. Dallas Hewitt was in pursuit after getting past polesitter Simon, but catching Westfall seemed unlikely.
A spinning car coming to the checkered flag required one more restart, but Westfall held serve and held off Hewitt in the one-lap dash to the finish.
“At the end of the race it would not fire off very good,” Westfall said. “I had no idea how close anyone was to me so I just figured if I could stay in the rubber I would be ok. The tires just would not go until I got them hot, some heat in them there at the end. I just did not know how close anyone was then I saw Dallas pull up beside me, so I just stayed in the rubber and slid myself before he could slide me and worked it out to the end.”
The finish:
Matt Westfall, Dallas Hewitt, Mike Fischesser, Dustin Ingle, Landon Simon, Luke Hall, Cody Gardner, Kory Crabtree, Matt Cooley, Todd Kane, Steve Little, Kyle Kruger, Parker Fredrickson, Lance Webb, Dickie Gaines, Brian Ruhlman, Brandon Conkel, Jay Dunaway, Carmen Perigo, Korbyn Hayslett.