By Matt Skipper
When the DIRTcar Sportsman take the green flag on Saturday night for the Great Lakes 75, it will feature two new faces at the front of the pack.
Among the 83 cars that made the trip to Oswego Speedway for Super DIRT Week 53, Latham, NY’s Zachary Buff won his first career SRI Performance/Stock Car Steel and Aluminum Pole Award in his second event appearance. The 24-year-old followed that up with a commanding win in Qualifier Heat 3 to build up his preparation for Saturday’s finale.
“It puts us all on an equal playing field,” Buff said. “You really just got to work hard, and come here with the best you got. Everything’s got to be perfect on these cars if you want to be able to get up front, so I think we did just that. Me and my dad have been in the shop nonstop, just working and trying to find this speed that we’ve been looking for, and it feels like we finally did it.”
Brent Smith Photo
Joining Buff after earning the Fratto Curbing Outside Pole Award was Gavin Eisele. The Lafargeville, NY driver followed up his career-high start in the Sportsman division with the win in Qualifier Heat 1 to chase his first Super DIRT Week triumph in his fourth career start.
“We were really trying to figure out what we got for long runs here,” Eisele said. “We’ll go from here, look at our notes, and see what happens Saturday. You just got to hope you have a good car coming out of the box, and we were fairly good early on, made some adjustments, and made it even better.”
The second Qualifier Heat saw domination from Gloversville, NY’s Chad Edwards, who transferred into the second round of Sportsman Time Trials to start the day. Though he missed out on the Super Six by 0.091 seconds, he’ll start seventh on Saturday to seek a finish one spot better than his career-high second place in 2022.
“We’ve been fighting a vibration all day,” Edwards said. “We didn’t have a ton of time to change the driveshaft. We changed the (transmission) in between racing, and we were really good for the Heat. The car was great. I have a lot of good help, but I think the track will be similar for us on Saturday. We got a little tweaking, and I got my shock builders here, so we’re coming up with some ideas and go from there.”
In the final Qualifier Heat from the DIRTcar Sportsman, Richard Murtaugh drove a flawless 15 laps for a dominant win. The Fulton, NY driver finished runner-up to Matt Janczuk in 2024, and he knows that 2025 is his moment to shine in Oswego Victory Lane.
“We have a huge notebook already,” Murtaugh said. “Every time I come here, I take a long list of notes and just get ready for next year. But this is the year that everything’s coming together with an amazing piece. This fits right into my driving style. I love this place, big tracks, and that’s kinda my thing and what we’re used to. So, we’ll see what we got for Saturday.”
Tanner Warner, Jessica Power, and Kevin Chaffee also appeared on Thursday’s Sportsman Super Six. Locking in a guaranteed position through the four sets of Qualifier Heats around Oswego included Cameron Tuttle, Emmett Waldron, Cody McPherson, Matt Guererri, Tyler Corcoran, Mike Fowler, Brett Sears, Derrick McGrew, Justin Liechti, Cody Manitta, Zach Sobotka, Stephen Gray, Kevin Ridley, Chris Darling, Tony Finch II, Martin Polhill, and Tristan Ladouceur
Click here for full qualifying results from Thursday.
The remaining 59 drivers of the DIRTcar Sportsman Modifieds will go to three Last Chance Showdowns for the top three positions, beginning on Saturday at 2 p.m. ET. Opening Ceremonies for the Great Lakes 75 are scheduled for 3 p.m.
If you can’t make it to the track, you can watch all the action live on DIRTVision – either online or by downloading the DIRTVision App.
