WEEDSPORT, N.Y. — David Gravel rolled to his 10th World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series victory of the season Sunday night at Weedsport Speedway.
Gravel took the top spot on lap four from early leader Danny Varin, sliced his way through traffic, and survived multiple restarts on his journey to the $20,000 payday.
“Danny Varin was good there early, and that caution came out and kind of saved me a little bit,” Gravel said. “I had to get the wing back some then I was searching and went to the top of (turns) one and two and smoked the wall and knocked the ladder off of it. That didn’t help the handling too much, made the car a little worse. I felt like as long as I was running the line I was doing in (turns) one and two I didn’t think he’d be able to pass me or get a big run. Then you just run into (turn) three as hard as you can and try to backpedal. The cushion got really far around there, and I started shortening the exit. I think that worked out pretty good.
“Cody (Jacobs), Scott (Vogelsong), and Zach (Patterson) worked really hard tonight,” Gravel said. “I cleaned the front end off the thing in the Heat Race and knocked the radiator out of it, so they worked hard all night and fixed a lot of broken parts and I broke some more there. That’s probably the most stuff I’ve torn up in a night, but we won so the 20 grand will make up for it.”
The win marked many notable milestones for Gravel. First, his 86th career World of Outlaws win broke a tie with Brad Sweet on the all-time win list and moved him into a tie with Daryn Pittman for ninth
The path to victory for Gravel began from inside row two where he lined up after finishing third in the Toyota Racing Dash. When the green flag dropped, Gravel had already nosed ahead of second-starting Sweet for the runner-up spot by the time they exited turn two.
On the next lap, Gravel rolled the bottom to pull alongside Varin as they completed the second circuit. The duo battled wheel to wheel for the entire next lap and were again side by side as they completed lap three. But when they roared down the back straightaway, Gravel was able to pull ahead and secure the lead on the fourth lap.
From there, Gravel took no prisoners as he immediately began to extend his advantage. Varin quickly had Carson Macedo, Sheldon Haudenschild and Donny Schatz all breathing down his neck.
After several laps of trading spots, Macedo emerged with second and Haudenschild came along with him into third.
A wild restart on lap 19 saw several frontrunners have their race threatened as Schatz made contact with Haudenschild, sending Schatz spinning up the track and collecting Gio Scelzi, Brock Zearfoss and James McFadden.
Another moment late in the race impacted a top competitor as Haudenschild made contact with the wall and slowed with oil leaking from his machine and ending his night.
These incidents helped pave the path for Gravel as he continued to ace every restart and work his way through traffic, determined to make up for the early error and contact with the wall. Gravel held off Macedo and a hard-charging Dave Blaney to claim the win and up his points lead to eight markers over Brad Sweet.
“Obviously Brad started on the front row, and he’s going to be hard to beat, but he obviously missed it tonight,” Gravel said. “You don’t want to see Sheldon drop out of the race or Donny. Those guys seem to be pretty good too. But it is what it is. All we can do is control what we can control and try to win races and run up front, and that’s what we’ve been doing… It feels good. It’s been a fun year. We’ve been hitting our stride for most of the season, and let’s keep it rolling.”
Macedo held on for second aboard the Jason Johnson Racing No. 41.
“I think being out in front there in that scenario with the line we’re running, I think that clean air is much better,” Macedo noted. “It seems like you can get across the center and get going good again. I kind of had to try to enter off his right rear (tire), and I felt like I was in his wash and I’d get to spinning real bad. It would get me to the fence sooner, but I felt like catching the grip and trying to get through it was better. The couple times that I tried to enter like he was real low and get across I just didn’t feel very good. My car was phenomenal in the Feature. I think we started sixth. Philip Dietz, Clyde Knipp, Nate Repetz, they hit it on the head tonight.”
Rounding out the top three was the feel-good story of the night in the form of Dave Blaney. Making his 2023 World of Outlaws season debut, “The Buckeye Bullet” charged from 12th to third for his 335th career series podium and first since his win at Sharon Speedway in 2021.
“It was good,” Blaney said. “This is kind of our kind of track – slick and slow, and our car is pretty good at that. I didn’t expect to get that far from 12th, but the car was good. No issues. Fun race. It’s just so fun to race with the whole crowd here. When you can race with them the whole race, that’s fun.”
Brad Sweet and Giovanni Scelzi completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (35 Laps): 1. 2-David Gravel[3]; 2. 41-Carson Macedo[6]; 3. 10-Dave Blaney[12]; 4. 49-Brad Sweet[2]; 5. 18-Giovanni Scelzi[7]; 6. 1S-Logan Schuchart[13]; 7. 10C-Larry Wight[15]; 8. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss[4]; 9. 32B-Dale Blaney[20]; 10. 15-Donny Schatz[5]; 11. 20G-Noah Gass[11]; 12. 1A-Jacob Allen[10]; 13. 98-Joe Trenca[17]; 14. 23-Max McLaughlin[23]; 15. 5-Spencer Bayston[21]; 16. 7NY-Matt Farnham[19]; 17. 7S-Robbie Price[16]; 18. 53-Shawn Donath[22]; 19. (DNF) 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[8]; 20. (DNF) 1M-Landon Myers[14]; 21. (DNF) 11-Cory Turner[24]; 22. (DNF) 83-James McFadden[9]; 23. (DNF) 01-Danny Varin[1]; 24. (DNF) 88C-Chad Miller[18]