MALTA, N.Y. – Jack Lehner withstood a last-lap charge from veteran Matt DeLorenzo to claim his first Albany-Saratoga Speedway DIRTcar modified win Friday night.
Now 22, the youngster had a win in the Sportsman class before moving up to the big blocks and has been tabbed as a superstar of the future by many.
Right behind runner-up DeLorenzo at the checkered flag was reigning track champion Mike Mahaney, up from 14th, with Anthony Perrego and Peter Britten rounding out the top five. They were trailed by Jessey Mueller, 19th-starting Kenny Tremont Jr. – who was looking for three wins in a row – Kris Vernold, Keith Flach and Marc Johnson.
Front-row starters Elmo Reckner and Don Ronca battled for the lead early on before Ronca got a firm grip on the lead on lap 10 by rim riding around the infield hugging Reckner. A lap-13 yellow then brought Ronca, a winner in five different decades at Albany-Saratoga, back to the field.
Lehner, who’d started eighth, stood fourth on the restart and worked his way to second by halfway of the 35-lapper, despite light rain making the racing surface ever slicker.
When Ronca went right to the edge of the turn one banking on lap 20, Lehner drew in tight and, while a yellow two laps later gave Ronca a reprieve, the handwriting was on the wall. Lehner kept driving in under him and on lap 25 Ronca went over the bank, promoting the red-headed racer to the lead with DeLorenzo in hot pursuit.
Meanwhile, Mahaney had been chewing the field up one by one and finally, in the low 30’s, he edged Britten for third and drew in on DeLorenzo to make it a three-car dash to the checkered flag.
“I’ve been close a couple of times and have felt a number of times that I had the car to do it,” said Lehner. “But we usually start way back and something always kept us from getting all the way to the front. Ronca was fast and I was worried I couldn’t run him down, but then he tagged the frontstretch wall a couple of times and got higher and higher in the turns and I figured something would happen.
“We’ve been running the Super DIRTcar Series for two years and that’s helped tremendously. You learn both how to race and patience.”
DeLorenzo, runner-up by a few feet for the second consecutive week, just laughed and said “close but no cigar. I tried not to screw up on the bottom like I did chasing Tremont last week, but he [Lehner] moved up and had more momentum off the top on that last lap.”
As for Mahaney, he tipped that his Adirondack Auto No. 35 was “good everywhere, so when everyone got going around the top, I ran the bottom. We went wherever they weren’t. With the weekly handicap, we always start way back and you can’t push too hard or you wreck. I just keep picking them off and hope to end up near the front.
“What we really need is a time trial show where the fast cars start up front and race each other all night.”
Justin Phillips claimed the feature for the visiting USAC DMA midget contingent, besting Josh Sunn, Will Hull, Justin Sheridan and Jason Goff.
Sunn inherited the point when the early leader dropped out on lap four and seemed headed to victory lane, but Phillips worked his way steadily forward from mid-pack to join the lead pack. He then backed up a couple of positions before making a breathtaking move in traffic to get back to second and finally shooting down Sunn with four to go in the 25-lap feature.
Manny Dias was sixth ahead of Joe Krawiec, Floyd Billington, Wayne Koehler and Adrian Tetrault.
Supporting class winners included Tyler Rapp in the Limited Sportsman division and Tim Hartman Jr. in the Sportsman class.
Hartman drove from deep in the pack to seize the lead from Jim Nagle, with Joey Scarborough, ageless Ron Proctor and Andrew Buff trailing.