Lance Dewease has accomplished quite a bit in his illustrious career, but one thing he had never done was to win two World of Outlaws A-Feature events in one season, let alone in one week. That is until Friday night at Williams Grove Speedway in the opener of the Summer Nationals, as he followed up his win at Lernerville Speedway earlier this week with a victory at his home track in front of a very large crowd at the historic half-mile.
The victory was the seventh A-Feature triumph for Dewease with the World of Outlaws in his career and also extended the Pennsylvania Posse’s win streak to seven against the World of Outlaws at Williams Grove Speedway dating back to last season.
“It means a lot,” said Dewease in Victory Lane. “We always like to defend our own turf here at ‘The Grove.’ These guys are tough and they are the best in the business. I was pretty happy with our race car the other night at Lernerville (Speedway) and was happy with it again tonight.”
The race began with Chad Layton, who won against the World of Outlaws back in May, leading at the start, though the first caution of the night flew before that lap was in the books, leading to a complete restart. On the second start, Paul McMahan who lined up on the pole led the field into turn one and opened a comfortable lead in the early going.
The only red flag of the night flew on the eighth circuit when Steve Kinser who had just taken the second spot from Chad Layton got into the turn four wall and upside down. On the ensuing double file restart, McMahan chose the high line, with Dewease sliding to the lead in turn one, only to have the caution come out before the lap was complete for a Sam Hafertepe Jr. crash, leading to a single file restart, since a complete lap was not in the books after the double file restart.
On the following single file restart, Dewease was all over McMahan, nearly the taking the lead off turns three and four on the ninth lap. Two laps later, Dewease would get around McMahan in turns three and four and quickly began to pull away.
The remainder of the 25-lap contest went without a caution, with Dewease leading the final 15 circuits, weaving his way through lapped traffic to score his second World of Outlaws win of the season.
“After that red, I don’t know if my tires cool off or lost some air, but I got really good there for a while,” he explained. “We got the wing back under it, and when we can get the wing back here, we usually get going pretty good. After I got by him, I wasn’t sure where to run and was driving across the middle of the race so good, that I thought we’d be all right there and we were.”
Dewease started fifth in the main event aboard the Advanced Development Services Maxim and got around Donny Schatz in the early going for fourth, before moving up to second after the lap-8 incident involving Kinser and Layton. Dewease began the night with a 14th-place qualifying effort, which put him on the pole of a heat race, which he ran second in to earn a spot in the dash. He came from eighth to fifth in the dash.
“Qualifying is everything right now and the times are so close that if you are even off just a hair, it shows,” noted the veteran. “We’ve been fortunate enough to put ourselves in positions to win races.”
Schatz ended up second in the Armor All/STP J&J to earn his 20th Top-Five finish of the season. He fell to fifth early before gaining a couple of spots, before getting around Paul McMahan for second on the 16th lap of the 25-lapper. Schatz began the night by turning the fastest lap in time trials of the 48 cars that were in attendance.
“It was a good night,” shared Schatz. “We qualified good and were good in the heat. We got better the longer the feature went and that is a testament to my guys. We felt like we had the car where we needed it to be and you can’t ask for more than that. There was one car a little better and my hat’s off to those guys. We’re going in the right direction.”
Jason Meyers worked his way from the 10th starting spot to finish third in the GLR Investments KPC to earn his 21st Top-Five finish of the season. He used a very strong initial start of the race to move up to sixth and found himself in fourth just eight laps into the going. After battling Paul McMahan for a number of laps, he got around him with four to go, to earn the final spot on the podium.
“We’ll definitely take it,” Meyers said. “We were trying to move around on the race track tonight and we got going through the middle pretty good, which I think will help us tomorrow night. I’m happy with tonight, especially after pulling a late pill draw (for qualifying). I’m looking forward to coming back tomorrow and hopefully getting a better pill draw and seeing if we can better this a few spots.”
Schatz, who has 15 career wins with the World of Outlaws at Williams Grove Speedway, has his sights set on the $20,000 top prize that awaits the winner on Saturday night, as he has won the Summer Nationals two of the last three years. The four-time and defending series champion gained some ground as well on Friday night in the series standings, as he finished ahead of each of the three guys in front of him in points.
“Everything we did tonight is big for tomorrow,” explained Schatz. “That’s kind of the key when you come to these two and three-day shows here at The Grove. We have a pretty good qualifying package and have been running pretty good and that’s pretty important. We haven’t been on a track this slick all year and we’re glad to be on something like this. We were a little hesitant on how far to go. We’re glad to get what we did and we’ll come back tomorrow.”
Meyers, who is looking for his first career win at Williams Grove, moved into the second spot in the World of Outlaws standings after Steve Kinser ended up 23rd. He trails Joey Saldana by 34 markers heading into the finale of the Summer Nationals on Saturday night. He has finished on the podium in three of his last five starts at the half-mile.
“Every time you come in here you learn something,” Meyers noted of Williams Grove Speedway. “We seem to be getting the hang of it here and hopefully we’ll be even better tomorrow.”
Paul McMahan, who led the first 10 laps of the race on Friday night, ended up fourth in the Great Clips Maxim, to earn his eighth Top-Five finish in the last nine races.
Greg Hodnett was fifth aboard the Macri Concrete Maxim, with Don Kreitz Jr. sixth in the Sharman Builders Maxim. Danny Dietrich came from 18 th to finish seventh in the Sandoes Fruit Market Maxim to earn his best career World of Outlaws finish along with the KSE Racing Products Hard Charger Award. Stevie Smith was eighth aboard the Zemco Speed Equipment Maxim. Alan Krimes was ninth in the Conestoga Valley Garage Maxim, with Sammy Swindell rounding out the Top-10 in the Big Game Treestands Maxim.
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