Another victory has Jared Landers on the verge of making UMP DIRTcar Racing history in the Alltel DIRTcar Nationals By UNOH at Volusia Speedway Park, while Darren Miller opened the Dirt Late Model portion of the event with a dominating victory.
Landers, of Batesville, Ark., captured his fifth victory during the 38th annual event at the sweeping half-mile dirt track near Daytona Beach. Using a last-lap pass on Ty Dillon to capture the checkered flag, Landers tied the mark of five victories set by Steve Arpin in 2007. Landers will go for the record in the UMP DIRTcar Modified finale on Tuesday.
With each victory Landers continues to increase his odds of becoming the 2009 Alltel All-Star as Miller became the first eligible Dirt Late Model driver in the contest. The overall winner as determined by fan votes will receive the $10,000 grand prize, while the top vote-getter in the other three divisions will earn $1,000. Over 12 consecutive nights from Feb. 3 to Feb. 14, 410 Sprint Cars, UMP DIRTcar Modifieds, Dirt Late Models and Big-Block Modifieds will all compete.
“I want to talk about all my other cars,” Landers said of the Team Dillon effort that placed Ty Dillon second, Austin Dillon third and Ryan Gifford fourth. “I had four cars I built for these guys and look, one, two, three, four. And I didn’t think I was going to be able to outrun them. Ty had it won. If we had a caution there was no way in the world I would have caught him. They just did a heck of a job. It just happened to work for me. I don’t know how.”
Miller, meanwhile, grabbed control of the green-to-checkered UMP DIRTcar Late Model feature from the start. He worked smoothly through traffic and right into the Alltel Victory Lane, making himself eligible for the $10,000 grand prize.
“It’s huge,” said Miller, of Chadwick, Ill. “It’d be neat if we could get more people like Alltel involved in what we’re doing. They came here last year and saw all what was going on and obviously were pretty happy because they came back. It’d be neat to see some more people get involved like they are. We definitely need to thank these people and try to keep going with this.”
Through seven nights of competition at the Alltel DIRTcar Nationals By UNOH, the Alltel All-Star contenders and their text message Letter Codes (in parenthesis) include:
Sprint Cars — Donny Schatz, Fargo, N.D. (b); Stevie Smith, Broken Arrow, Okla. (d); Joey Saldana, Brownsburg, Ind. (f).
UMP DIRTcar Modifieds — Jared Landers, Batesville, Ark. (a); Austin Dillon, Lewisville, N.C. (c); Randy Hall, Olean, N.Y. (e).
Dirt Late Models — Darren Miller, Chadwick, Ill. (g).
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