Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

USA

Series Mechanicsburg Saturday report 2010-10-02

Sammy Swindell Stops the Streak: Wins $50,000 Morgan Hughes National Open Mechanicsburg, PA- October 2, 2010- While he is not a full-time World of Outlaws driver, Sammy Swindell is certainly not a member of the Pennsylvania Posse either. Racing ...

Sammy Swindell Stops the Streak: Wins $50,000 Morgan Hughes National Open

Mechanicsburg, PA- October 2, 2010- While he is not a full-time World of Outlaws driver, Sammy Swindell is certainly not a member of the Pennsylvania Posse either. Racing when he wants, where he wants, the three-time World of Outlaws champion put an end to the Pennsylvania Posse's nine-race win streak at Williams Grove Speedway on Saturday night, taking the $50,000 top prize in the Morgan Hughes National Open at the famed half-mile in front of one of the largest crowds in track history, with the cameras from SPEED capturing all of the action for future broadcast.

The win for Swindell was his first at Williams Grove since 2000 and his second National Open triumph to go along with a victory in the prestigious event in 1997. He has four wins this season with the World of Outlaws and now has won at Williams Grove in four different decades, with the first of those coming in 1980.

"Sometimes it takes a while to get it right I guess," said Swindell with a smile when reminded when the last time he won the National Open was. "These guys were able to give me something to work with and we put ourselves in a good position. We were fortunate that a lot of things played out for us tonight. We learned a lot and were making changes all weekend and just kept getting better. We had it right when it counted."

Swindell took the lead from Jason Meyers on a lap-27 single file restart and never looked back on his way to the win. He opened the night by turning the fastest lap of the 56 cars that took to the track for qualifying. He followed that up with a second-place finish in the first heat race to earn a spot in the dash.

"This is a tough place," said the native of Germantown, Tennessee. "Last night (Friday) for example we had a bad draw and were buried in the heat and got in that crash and bent some stuff up, so we just used it as a test. We tried some things and did some things we don't normally do since we were back there and learned from that and it paid off tonight."

Swindell lined up seventh aboard the Big Game Treestands Maxim and worked his way into the Top-Five in the early going. He got under Stevie Smith for second coming off turn four on the 25th lap, then setting his sights on Meyers, who he would blast by two circuits later on a restart on the high side of turn two, following a couple of red flags.

"I knew that our car was really really good the first couple laps," he said. "I was really hooked up and could run really hard, but with the double file restarts and some things I just couldn't get the position. I knew when we had the single file deal that I had to get to the outside and if I could get to the outside I knew I could carry a lot more speed. It just worked out right for us. We were in the right place at the right time."

The race began with Jason Meyers taking the lead from pole sitter Brian Montieth as the field charged down the front straightaway. Montieth stuck right with the leader in the early going and looked both high and low in turns one and two as well as three four in a bid for the lead. Meyers entered lapped traffic for the first time on the eighth lap, with the first caution of the night flying four circuits later.

Meyers was out front for two double file restarts and chose the high side of the speedway each time and used strong starts to quickly jump back out to a lead. A crash on the 27th lap following a double file restart led to a single file restart.

Lance Dewease made a late race charge and closed up on Swindell on the final lap in turns three and four, coming up less than four-tenths of-a-second away from a win aboard the Advanced Development J&J. He ended up second as he made a bid to become just the third driver-ever to win the National Open four times.

"We had a real good race car the whole time," stated Dewease. "That last red (flag) the tires cooled off too much and we lost too much air. It just took me about five laps to get going again, but we had a good car. I can't complain about it. We were just one lap too short."

Meyers, who led the first 27 laps of the 40-lap contest, ended up third aboard the GLR Investments KPC to extend his lead in the World of Outlaws championship standings. He currently leads 20-time series champion Steve Kinser, who got caught up in an accident on the 12th lap which ended his night in 28th, by 102 markers, with Donny Schatz who finished 11th, third in points-111 markers back and Joey Saldana, who was 19th on Saturday night, fourth-115 markers out of the top spot. The lead for Meyers is the largest that any driver has had this season.

"We lost the battle tonight, but we are trying to win the war," said Meyers. "It was still a good night. We had a good car and led a lot of laps. It was a good weekend for us. This is what it's all about. We have four races to go and we have to keep digging. Good runs like tonight will help us. We want to win some more races before the year is over and we have a good race car right now. I'm looking forward to next weekend."

Two open red flags gave the drivers and crews a couple of chances to work on their machines throughout the course of the 40-lap race. Dewease was running third both times when the red flag waved and had a very strong car on the longer green flag runs.

"We never touched our race car the whole night," shared Dewease. "From the time we unloaded it, we just made a couple of minor adjustments. I thought I had a good enough car and after that red I felt like I had a car that was capable of winning the race. We made up a lot of ground on Sammy (Swindell) the last three or four laps and definitely had a good car."

Steve Smith ended up fourth in the Zemco Speed Equipment Maxim, with Jason Sides fifth aboard the Wetherington Tractor Service Maxim. Tim Shaffer was sixth in the Kistler Engines J&J with Kerry Madsen seventh aboard the Halls Haulage KPC. Paul McMahan came home eighth in the Great Clips Maxim while pole sitter Brian Montieth was ninth in the Premiere Auto Works XXX. Daryn Pittman rounded out the Top-10 piloting the Lealands.com J&J.

The World of Outlaws return to action on Saturday, October 9 at Rolling Wheels Raceway Park in New York as part of Super DIRT Week.

NATIONAL OPEN NIGHT #2 NOTES

* FAST QUALIFIER: Sammy Swindell paced the 56 cars that took time with an AMB i.t. timed lap around the semi-banked half-mile oval at 16.676 seconds at 107.940 miles per hour. For his qualifying effort Swindell earned five bonus points. The next four fastest qualifiers also earned bonus points, including: Tim Shaffer (4), Sam Hafertepe Jr. (3), Stevie Smith (2) and Lance Dewease (1).

* WILLIAMS GROVE SPEEDWAY QUALIFYING WINNERS: Lucas Wolfe, Daryn Pittman, Sam Hafertepe Jr., Jason Sides and Jason Meyers won heat races. Brian Montieth won the Dash. Kraig Kinser won the Last Chance Showdown. Greg Hodnett won the C-Main. Justin Henderson won the D-Main.

* FEATURE WINNERS: There have been 65 World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series A-Feature events held in 2010. The winners include: Joey Saldana (Thunderbowl Raceway, Volunteer Speedway, I-55 Raceway, Eldora Speedway-twice, Dodge City Raceway Park, River Cities Speedway, LaSalle Speedway, Beaver Dam Raceway, Lernerville Speedway, Nodak Speedway, Castrol Raceway and Deer Creek Speedway), Jason Meyers (The Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Thunderbowl Raceway, Volunteer Speedway, Tri-State (Okla.) Speedway, Virginia Motor Speedway, I-96 Speedway, North Central Speedway, I-55 Raceway, Castrol Raceway and Silver Dollar Speedway), Steve Kinser (Volusia Speedway Park, Jackson Speedway, River Cities Speedway, Lakeside Speedway, Eldora Speedway, Autodrome Drummond, Fulton Speedway and Skagit Speedway), Jac Haudenschild (Paducah International Raceway, Knoxville Raceway, Skagit Speedway, Clay County Fair Speedway and Eldora Speedway), Donny Schatz (Volusia Speedway Park, The Dirt Track at Charlotte, Ohsweken Speedway, Silver Dollar Speedway and Lernerville Speedway), Jason Sides (Houston Raceway Park, Tri-City Speedway, Missouri State Fair Speedway and Ohsweken Speedway), Sammy Swindell (Dodge City Raceway, Huset's Speedway, Silver Dollar Speedway and Williams Grove Speedway), Craig Dollansky (Lone Star Speedway, Cedar Lake Speedway and Nodak Speedway), Lance Dewease (Lernerville Speedway and Williams Grove Speedway), Greg Hodnett (Williams Grove Speedway-twice), Brooke Tatnell (Knoxville Raceway and Junction Motor Speedway), Dale Blaney (Limaland Motorsports Park), Doug Esh (Lebanon Valley Speedway), Danny Lasoski (Cottage Grove Speedway), Chad Layton (Williams Grove Speedway), Paul McMahan (Eldora Speedway), Fred Rahmer (Williams Grove Speedway) and Tim Shaffer (I-55 Raceway).

* HALF-MILE-WINNERS: Williams Grove Speedway is a semi-banked half-mile. The World of Outlaws have raced 24 times at a track that size in 2010. The winners include: Steve Kinser (Volusia Speedway Park, Jackson Speedway, Lakeside Speedway and Eldora Speedway), Jason Meyers (The Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Virginia Motor Speedway and I-96 Speedway), Jac Haudenschild (Knoxville Raceway and Eldora Speedway), Greg Hodnett (Williams Grove Speedway-twice), Joey Saldana (Eldora Speedway-twice), Jason Sides (Tri-City Speedway and Missouri State Fair Speedway), Lance Dewease (Williams Grove Speedway), Craig Dollansky (Lone Star Speedway), Doug Esh (Lebanon Valley Speedway), Chad Layton (Williams Grove Speedway), Paul McMahan (Eldora Speedway), Fred Rahmer (Williams Grove Speedway), Donny Schatz (Volusia Speedway Park), Sammy Swindell (Williams Grove Speedway) and Brooke Tatnell (Knoxville Raceway).

-source: WoO

Be part of Motorsport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Series Mechanicsburg Friday report 2010-10-01
Next article Series points update 2010-10-03

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Motorsport prime

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Edition

USA