MALTA, N.Y. – Announcer Dan Martin had to work through some challenging names Friday night at the Albany-Saratoga Speedway as Demetrious Drellos won the DIRTcar modified feature while Paulie Colagiovanni claimed the finale for the visiting Empire Super Sprints.
Drellos’ win came at the expense of Jack Lehner, back with a new mount after riding out a series of barrel rolls a week ago, who got even with the leader at one point, then dropped back to fight off the eventual third place finisher, point leader Anthony Perrego. Peter Britten, who had a late race battle with Perrego, had to settle for fourth just ahead of Marc Johnson.
Kris Vernold lead the first few laps with Derrick McGrew Jr. and Don Ronca challenging but Drellos, who lined up fourth but dropped back on the start, soon started shooting down the leaders one by one and took command on lap five, never to be headed. Keith Flach then moved steadily forward to take second and at lap 10 the order had been shuffled to Drellos, Flach, Vernold, Ronca, Lehner and Kenny Tremont Jr., making a wild charge around the outside from mid-pack.
Tremont managed to pick up one more spot before going over the end of turn one on lap 21 of the 35 lapper, dropping to the back of the top-10 while Lehner went the other way, scooting to second and closing rapidly on the leader.
Lap 25 brought the night’s only yellow as Mike Mahaney slowed with a flat, putting Britten and Perrego in sight of the leader, who had been long gone. The last 10 laps saw Lehner make a few runs on Drellos before dropping off his pace and settling for second while behind them, Britten get to third before Perrego took it back with the checkers in sight.
Tremont clawed his way back to sixth ahead of Flach, Ronnie Johnson, Jeremy Pitts and Matt DePew.
Like Drellos, Colagiovanni came out of the fourth slot. The original start was negated when Davey Franek and Tyler Cartier tangled but once the green stayed out, the fleet Colagiovanni wasted no time, blowing around Josh Pieniezak on lap three and then driving around early leader Shawn Donath three laps later.
From that point, Colagiovanni was busy lapping the backmarkers and building his lead with fans were turning their attention to cars working their way forward behind him. Most notable were B-main winner Jason Barney, who lined up 19th and had moved to the top five by lap 18 and 7th starting Chuck Hebing, who quietly worked his way to second. Both ran out of laps before they could challenge for the lead but kept the fans excited as Colagiovanni cruised along out front.
At the stripe it was Jeff Cook in third ahead of Donath, Barney, Pieniezak, Scott Holcomb, Matt Tanner, Danny Varin and Dylan Swiernik.
In supporting class action, Andrew Buff edged division kingpin Tim Hartman Jr. in the Sportsman finale.