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Jessica Power finishes second, earning his best Charlotte finish
By Mike Warren
Photo Joe Grabianowski Dirtcar
Dave Rogers has become a regular visitor to Victory Lane at The Dirt Track at Charlotte in the past few seasons.
The LaFargeville, NY driver led every lap to win his third World Short Track Championship Feature in the last four years in the VP Racing Sportsman division.
“Every time you can win here, it means the same,” Rogers said. “It’s unbelievable, and it’s a dream come true.
Rogers, the pole-sitter, slid in front of Donovan Lussier in Turn 2 to take the lead on the race’s opening lap. However, he could never pull away from the field with two Pro Fabrication caution flags slowing down the event in the first 19 laps.
Lussier tried challenging Rogers several times but lost second to Derrick McGrew Jr. on the lap 20 restart. The St. Denis-de-Richelieu driver lost another spot when Jessica Power snuck underneath him with six laps to go.
McGrew tried chasing down the No. 44 car, but a caution with three laps remaining for Payton Talbot impacted the top three drivers.
When the race resumed, Rogers pulled away again, but Power dove underneath McGrew in Turn 2, making contact as they raced down the backstretch. The contact sent McGrew’s No. 26 around leaving Zach Buff nowhere to go in the incident.
From there, Rogers took advantage of the single-file restart to pull away from Power and score the $4,000 prize and his seventh career DIRTcar Sportsman Series victory.
“It’s my driving style,” Rogers said. “It’s banked, and you can just run the piss out of it. You got to drive it hard or you’re lacking. As you can see the motor is steaming. I drove the shit out of this thing.”
Power crossed the line second, earning her best finish at the 4/10-mile oval. The Kingston, ON, driver said she thought the cautions at the end of the race stopped her momentum.
“Everyone’s so fast here,” Power said. “You have to capitalize on restarts. It’s terrible what happened with that wreck, but it’s just one of those things that everyone’s racing hard, and I hope everyone’s okay.
“We had a really fast hot rod tonight. I wish we started closer to the front and maybe we could’ve done something.”
Lussier, who won Thursday’s Championship Invitational Feature rounded out the podium.
“I think the car was decent; I just didn’t get lucky with the outside starting position,” Lussier said. “Overall, we had a great weekend. The car was fast every night and I feel like we can just improve for next year.”
Darin Gallagher finished fourth, and Chris Jakubiak rounded out the top five.
VP Racing Sportsman Feature (30 Laps): 1. 44-David Rogers[1]; 2. 52-Jessica Power[7]; 3. 61L-Donovan Lussier[2]; 4. 10-Darin Gallagher[5]; 5. 49-Chris Jakubiak[21]; 6. 80-Joshua Jock[12]; 7. 35T-Cameron Tuttle[6]; 8. 38JR-Jason Parkhurst Jr[13]; 9. 88-Jeffrey Lapalme[18]; 10. 32C-Carter Crooker[3]; 11. 12G-Matt Guererri[16]; 12. 16X-Savannah Laflair[22]; 13. 21-Cameron Norris IV[15]; 14. 20X-Kevin Ridley[8]; 15. 44S-Gordon Smith[24]; 16. 02-Cody Ochs[20]; 17. 61-Derek Wagner[10]; 18. 57-Ray Hall Jr[14]; 19. 58-Logen Lockhart[25]; 20. 23-David Dickey[11]; 21. 26-Derrick McGrew[4]; 22. 14-Payton Talbot[9]; 23. 01-Zachary Buff[23]; 24. 78-Michael Wright[19]; 25. 10X-Cory Castell[26]; 26. 165K-Karston King[17]
