It was a night of firsts at Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania on Saturday night, as Greg Hodnett won the Morgan Hughes National Open for the first time in his career, pocketing $50,000, while Cody Darrah scored his first career World of Outlaws victory in the completion of the Cleveland Brothers Summer Nationals which was postponed by rain back in July to earn $20,000.
Hodnett dominated the 40-lap National Open from start to finish to win for the third time this season with the World of Outlaws at Williams Grove Speedway. For the veteran driver, it was his 10th career World of Outlaws A-Feature win, in the event which was broadcast live on SPEED in front of a standing room only crowd at the famed half-mile.
“This is the biggest race I have ever won,” said Hodnett. “It means a great deal. I’ve been trying to win this race for a long, long time. I’ve been decent and not nearly as good as we were tonight. I’m just thankful that I’m able to be part of it and get this elusive win and this prestigious win. I can’t say enough. I’m ecstatic.”
The race took a couple of starts to get going with first a red flag flying before the first circuit was completed and then a yellow followed on the ensuing restart, but Hodnett charged to the lead each time with Brian Montieth in tow, with Donny Schatz moving into third at the start.
By the sixth lap, Hodnett had opened a sizeable advantage in the Macri Concrete Maxim and continued to lead when the second red flag of the night flew on the 11th circuit for Montieth who was running second when he lost a tire and got in the wall and upside down. This gave the crews a chance to work on their machines.
On the restart, Schatz, who had moved into second, looked high in turns one and two and then low in turns three and four to no avail. The leaders found themselves in some light lapped traffic near the halfway point of the race. Schatz nearly took the lead on the 21st lap going low in turns three and four. On the 27th lap Schatz ran side by side with Hodnett through turns one and two with the yellow flag flying later that lap.
Hodnett used another strong restart to quickly jump out to a few car length lead on Schatz. As the laps wound down, Schatz kept pace with him and with five laps to go gained a little bit of ground, with the caution coming out with four laps to go. Another strong restart propelled Hodnett to a sizeable lead, only to have the red flag fly just after he took the white flag, leading to an open red flag which gave the crews one last chance to make adjustments on their race cars.
“They said that Donny (Schatz) was changing gears and I didn’t know if he was going high or low,” he explained. “I figured he would have to get a pretty good run on top to get by so I kept it moving. I tried to keep it going forward and not slip a lot. Fortunately for us it worked out. I just tried to stay out front all night long and not abuse my car or my tires and it worked out.”
On the final restart, Schatz looked high in turns one and two, though Hodnett was able to use a strong charge down the back straightaway to pull away and pocket the $50,000. Schatz wound up second in the Armor All J&J as he made a bid for his fifth career National Open Triumph.
“If I would have had half the car I had in that makeup deal, we wouldn’t have run second in the National Open,” said Schatz. “We brought a new car here and it was an awesome, awesome car. We didn’t have everything just right and it took us a little bit to get going. It is what it is, and we were there. We never hit lapped traffic. We were strung out and go the whole time. That’s the way it goes.”
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