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Phelps Outduels Sears for Opening Night Feature win

Staff Report
Resubmitted with corrections
With contributions from Mike Mallett, Dirt Track Digest
marketing@brewertonspeedway.com
(315) 374-1168

BREWERTON, NY – Jimmy Phelps, of Baldwinsville, N.Y., 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 on Oneida Lake Walleye Fest night. 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 1, 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.”

Defending Brewerton Speedway Dot Foods DIRTcar Sportsman Champion Zach Sobotka took a big first step to defending his crown winning the opening night Sportsman main. After starting eleventh in the 24 car starting field, Sobotka worked his way to third over the first two-thirds of the event before a caution on lap-20 slowed the pace.

On the restart, Cody Manitta worked past race-long leader Emmett Waldron and appeared headed for the win but Sobotka has other ideas. Going down the backstretch on lap 22 Sobotka powered past both Waldron and Manitta and into the lead. Sobotka wouldn’t look back enroute to the popular victory. Manitta, Waldron, Jason Parkhurst Jr., and Stephen Marshall rounded out the top-5 finishers.

The win was technically Sobotka’s second in a row as he also ended the 2023 season with a win in the Super DIRT Week Special Hurricane Harvey event. Sobotka also took home the A-to-Z Contracting Hard Charger award.

Zack Babcock had a strong AmeriCU Mod Lite enroute to the 20-lap feature win. After starting fourth in the 17 car field, Babcock quickly worked his way to the second spot by lap three behind 2023 Track Champion, Kyle Demo. On lap 4, however, Demo pulled into the infield with mechanical issues leaving Babcock in the lead. Babcock set a torrid pace on the bottom of the speedway the rest of the way enroute to the victory.

Joe Isabell came home a solid second, with 2022 Champion Mike Mullen, Joe Garafolo and Matt Kitts rounding out the top-5.

Nate Powers captured his first ever Brewerton Speedway win late in 2023 and hasn’t slowed down since. Powers continued his hot streak Friday night capturing a very competitive Mirabito DIRTcar 4-Cylinder season opener. Powers used his pole starting position and ran a consistent event outlasting determined efforts from first Justin Pope, then Dan Valade enroute to the victory. Valade, Pope, newcomer Mike Matthews and Justin Guyle rounded out the top-5 finishers.

Pit Notes:

A strong field of 33 Tracey Road DIRTcar Modifieds lined the pits. Jason Parkhurst (9th), Dave Marcucilli (11th) and Matt Meade (12th) took home small block bonus cash.

Perennial frontrunner, Tom Sears Jr. was a scratch for the night after a heat race mechanical failure.

29 Dot Foods DIRTcar Sportsman, 17 AmeriCU Mod Lites and 16 Mirabito 4-Cylinders were pitside. The Mirabito 4-cylinder teams did their homework during the off-season, with the top-9 finishers all running in the same pack throughout the 15-lap feature.

Next up at Brewerton:

Friday, May 10

NeivelPrecision Plumbing

DIRTcar Sportsman Central Series
Wingless 600 Micro Sprints
Tracey Road DIRTcar Modifieds
AmeriCU Mod Lites
Mirabito 4-Cylinders

Tracey Road DIRTcar Modified Feature (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]

?A-to-Z Contracting Heat Winner Bonus ($100) - Todd Root, Tim Sears Jr., Ronnie Davis III, Jason Parkhurst

A-to-Z Contracting Hard Charger ($100): - Chris Hile (17th-to-5th)

Dot Foods DIRTcar Sportsman Feature (25 Laps): 1. 38-Zach Sobotka[11]; 2. 6-Cody Manitta[3]; 3. 4-Emmett Waldron[1]; 4. 38JR-Jason Parkhurst Jr[5]; 5. 28X-Stephen Marshall[8]; 6. 72-Hunter Hollenbeck[2]; 7. 88H-Chris Hulsizer[15]; 8. 0-Tony Finch II[7]; 9. 5D-Kyle Devendorf[9]; 10. 83-Brett Sears[14]; 11. 30-Nicholas Root[12]; 12. 284-Jamie Kamrowski[22]; 13. 10G-Austin Germinio[18]; 14. 77L-Buddy Leathley[4]; 15. 3-Colby Herzog[13]; 16. 63-Teddy Clayton Jr[10]; 17. 32-Joe Trichilo[20]; 18. 21-Ryan Barrett[17]; 19. 80X-Mike Button[19]; 20. 16X-Savannah Laflair[21]; 21. 30P-Dylan Piersall[24]; 22. 12-Owen Bird[16]; 23. R1-Riley Rogala[23]; 24. 86-Matt Steffenhagan[6]

A-to-Z Contracting Hard Charger ($100): Zach Sobotka (11th-1st)

AmeriCU IMCA STARS Mod Lite Feature (20 Laps): 1. 88Z-Zack Babcock[4]; 2. 6J-Joe Isabell[1]; 3. 06-Mike Mullen[5]; 4. 55-Joseph Garafolo[6]; 5. 5K-Matt Kitts[3]; 6. 9W-Rocco Leone[13]; 7. 2D-Jacob Dupra[11]; 8. 9-Roger Olschewske Jr[7]; 9. 80X-Anthony Scott[16]; 10. 11X-Jack Lyon[10]; 11. 8BALL-Kelly Skinner[15]; 12. 10W-Justin Williams[9]; 13. 155-Nicholas Garafolo[14]; 14. 4J-Jacob Malbouf[12]; 15. 99-Thomas Mackey[8]; 16. 22-Kyle Demo[2]; 17. (DNS) 24G-Michael Gloska

Mirabito DIRTcar 4-Cylinder Feature (15 Laps): 1. 113-Nathan Powers[1]; 2. 21-Daniel Valade[6]; 3. 27P-Justin Pope[4]; 4. 68-Mike Matthews[3]; 5. 88-Justin Guyle[8]; 6. 99-Walt VanEpps[5]; 7. 55-Anthony VanEpps[10]; 8. 67K-Clayton Koch[17]; 9. R1-Donny Rider Jr[12]; 10. 23B-Brian Mettler[11]; 11. 27A-Alexandra Parker[18]; 12. 289-Michael Davis[13]; 13. 16B-Chris Bonoffski[16]; 14. 22E-Eric Inman[7]; 15. 7V-Kiki VanEpps[9]; 16. 21V-Corey Valade[2]; 17. 9-Dylan Burdick[14]; 18. (DNS) 06-Maggie Guyle

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