MALTA, N.Y. — Defending Albany-Saratoga Speedway DIRTcar modified champion Demetrious Drellos has been struggling through the early weeks of the 2024 campaign.
But he broke out of the doldrums in a big way Friday night with a $4,000 score that was not secure until the last turn of the 35-lap finale.
Drellos, who started 12th, didn’t get the lead until lap 32 when Jeremy Pitts, who he had been battling since the mid-20s, lost a driveline and slowed on the backstretch, handing command to Drellos. But point leader Peter Britten and Marc Johnson were second and third for the restart and the last three laps were a war.
Johnson shot low on the green, blowing by Britten for second. But the Australian delighted the crowd by building a big head of steam off the top of turn two and down the backstretch before shooting by both Johnson and Drellos on the inside as they hit turn three.
The sprint car like slide job put Britten on top but only for a few seconds, as Drellos crossed under him and regained the lead off turn four. Britten stayed close to the checkers but besides chasing Drellos, had to contend with Johnson sticking his nose alongside in the corners.
At the stripe, it was Britten second ahead of Johnson, Derek Bornt and Jack Speshock. Kolby Schroeder led a second five that included Neil Stratton, Jack Lehner, Ryan McCartney and last week’s winner, Jessey Mueller.
The early laps featured crowd pleasing duels for the lead between Donnie Ronca, Justin Stone and Bornt early on, then Pitts and Ronca once the former arrived from eighth. But that ended on lap 21 when Pitts threw a big slide job on leader Ronca and missed, causing the veteran to spin and back into the turn four wall. Pitts then led until his mount died, promoting Drellos to the point.
“I had to run a different line tonight but we made it work,” offered the elated winner. “We’ve been in a rut and searching for an answer and I think we found it. Peter was tough, because he was more maneuverable than we were. We were too tight to run the bottom and we couldn’t run the top but we were really good in the middle. I had two of the top three cars here behind us on that last restart and I couldn’t protect either lane. But I was lucky that I could cross Peter back without taking Marc’s nose off and got the lead back.”
Britten, happy to start 15th after three weeks of fighting his way forward from the rear of the field and not getting to the top five until the waning laps, said “we weren’t set up to run on the cushion and it was hard to get off it. But we had to give it a go. I had nothing to lose, so I drove it in hard and got up in front of him. But he saw me coming and crossed me over. He did what he had to do and I can’t blame him for that!”
The companion Pro Stock feature had almost as much drama, with the top three cars tangling in turn two on the last lap and ending up stacked together in turn two. This put fourth running Brandon Emigh in command and he claimed his fourth win of the season over western New Yorker Pete Stefanski, Kyle Hoard and Jay Casey.