Fifteen Feature wins. An Airborne Park Speedway track championship. And now, a Feature win at The Dirt Track at Charlotte for Donovan Lussier.
The 20-year-old from St-Denis-sur-Richelieu, QC, made the 1,000-mile trip south to the famed dirt track in Concord, NC, to compete in the World Short Track Championship for the first time in his career and wasted little time making his mark, scoring the win in Thursday night’s VP Racing DIRTcar Sportsman Championship Feature.
Lussier took the green flag from outside Row 3 in the 15-lap main event. Working the middle lane around the 4/10-mile oval, Lussier advanced four spots in the opening lap to move to second and set his sights on leader and fellow Quebec-native Jeffrey Lapalme.
The two crossed the start/finish line less than 0.2 seconds apart. Lussier charged hard into Turn 1 and used the momentum from the fast middle groove to pull ahead of Lapalme at the exit of Turn 2.
Joe Grabianowski Photo
Lapalme dove deep into Turn 3 in an effort to defend the spot but could not outmuscle Lussier’s speed. Lussier then completed the pass out of Turn 4 and crossed the stripe to lead Lap 2.
From there, it was smooth sailing for Lussier out front as he led the rest of the distance unchallenged to claim his first career DIRTcar Sportsman Series win in his first-ever appearance at The Dirt Track at Charlotte.
“Starting on the outside there helped me,” Lussier said. “I didn’t know if the groove was good, but once I passed a couple cars, I knew I could stick right there in the middle and slide up on exit and be good and fast.”
Lapalme held on to finish second while David Rogers completed the podium in third. Cody Ochs drove from eighth on the starting grid to finish fourth while Savannah Laflair rounded out the top five.
UP NEXT
The VP Racing DIRTcar Sportsman return to action at The Dirt Track at Charlotte on Friday, Nov. 1, with a round of Heat Races which will set a portion of Saturday’s Championship Feature lineup.
Tickets for the event are on sale at DIRTcar.com/WorldShortTrack and will be available at the track on race day. If you can’t be there to watch in person, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
RESULTS
Championship Feature (15 Laps): 1. 61L-Donovan Lussier[6]; 2. 88-Jeffrey Lapalme[1]; 3. 44-David Rogers[2]; 4. 02-Cody Ochs[8]; 5. 16X-Savannah Laflair[4]; 6. 165K-Karston King[3]; 7. 52-Jessica Power[5]; 8. 14-Payton Talbot[14]; 9. 80-Joshua Jock[20]; 10. 32C-Carter Crooker[10]; 11. 49-Chris Jakubiak[19]; 12. 38JR-Jason Parkhurst Jr[9]; 13. 01-Zachary Buff[18]; 14. 26-Derrick McGrew[17]; 15. 10-Darin Gallagher[12]; 16. 35T-Cameron Tuttle[13]; 17. 23-David Dickey[16]; 18. 20X-Kevin Ridley[15]; 19. 6W-Kyle Whitney[11]; 20. 57-Ray Hall Jr[7]
