BREWERTON, N.Y. — Jimmy Phelps used traffic and a little luck to get by defending track champion Tim Sears Jr. to win the opening night Tracey Road DIRTcar Modified 35-lap feature at the Brewerton Speedway.
Zach Sobotka captured the Dot Foods DIRTcar Sportsman feature, Zack Babcock took home the glory in the AmeriCU Mod Lite Feature with Nate Powers winning the Mirabito DIRTcar Four-Cylinder Superstock main.
Sears rolled from the outside of the front row to lead the event at the drop of the green flag. He set a torrid pace early, while Phelps was working forward from his fifth starting spot.
It was all Sears early until he began to work traffic on lap 10. Sears tried to navigate his way through working both the high and low lanes. As he tried to pick his way through, Phelps closed in.
Phelps was able to make his move on lap 13. Phelps got a run and pulled even with Sears before completing the pass off of turn four to take the top position away. Sears didn’t go down without a fight, as he stayed close to Phelps’ back bumper. He took several shots to get back to the lead as he found a line around the bottom of the speedway. Phelps was just a bit better.
Phelps survived a late race incident with lapped car, Matt Caprara, just before the final caution came out on lap 31. As Caprara was forced to check up entering turn one, Phelps, with nowhere to go, made solid contact with the 2023 DIRTcar Modified Rookie of the Year. Fortunately for Phelps, the contact only mangled his front bumper and spared his running gear.
“When I got into Matt I wasn’t sure we’d have a front end left, glad it was just the bumper” said Phelps.
Phelps faced one final challenge as the caution came out on lap 31 for a stopped car on the frontstretch. The restart went perfectly as Phelps jumped back to the point, with Sears and Larry Wight battling one another for the runner-up spot.
Phelps went on to get the win, with Wight edging Sears at the line for second. Sears was third. Zachary Payne finished fourth, with 17th-starting Chris Hile completing the top five.
“I really wasn’t sure if we had anything for him or not,” said Phelps. “By the time we got to second, he was already fighting a lot of lapped traffic. Fortunately, it played in our favor. We were able to sneak by him. The worst part about it was that we didn’t know if we were any better than him. We knew when we got to traffic that he was coming. I wasn’t sure. All-in-all, we were just fortunate to get through there.”
Feature Finish (35 Laps)
1. 98H-Jimmy Phelps[5]; 2. 99L-Larry Wight[8]; 3. 83X-Tim Sears Jr[2]; 4. 7Z-Zachary Payne[7]; 5. 5H-Chris Hile[17]; 6. 60-Jackson Gill[12]; 7. 15-Todd Root[1]; 8. 38P-Jason Parkhurst[4]; 9. 12-Darren Smith[11]; 10. 32R-Ronnie Davis III[3]; 11. M1-David Marcuccilli[19]; 12. 28M-Matt Meade[10]; 13. 5-Amy Holland[23]; 14. 2024-Tyler Trump[14]; 15. X-Chad Phelps[25]; 16. 21-Derrick Podsiadlo[6]; 17. 28-Alan Fink[21]; 18. 11-Matt Caprara[18]; 19. 24-James Witko Jr[15]; 20. 3-Chris Mackey[22]; 21. 27Z-Dylan Zacharias[24]; 22. 34-Kevin Root[20]; 23. 11T-Jeff Taylor[26]; 24. 17-Marcus Dinkins[16]; 25. 42-Max Hill[13]; 26. 18$-Sean Beardsley[9]