Twenty-six spots on the starting grid are now set for Sunday’s Chevy Performance 75
Five Heat Races, five different winners. Another 20 drivers have punched their tickets into Sunday’s DIRTcar Sportsman Modified Chevy Performance 75 at Oswego Speedway.
The remaining 76 drivers will lineup Saturday afternoon to compete in one of three Last Chance Showdown events, vying for another six available starting spots in the $4,000-to-win NAPA Super DIRT Week finale.
The three LCS events will kick off the on-track action Saturday at 4pm, preceding the 358 Modified and Super DIRTcar Series LCS events. If you can’t be at the track, stream all the action live on DIRTVision presented by Drydene.
Heat Race 1 – Mike Fowler
Now sitting on the front row of the first Heat Race with Robert Bublak to his outside, Mike Fowler knew he had a great chance to get his ticket punched into the big show on Sunday.
Michael Fry Photo
Chevy Performance 75 polesitter Chad Edwards chose not to participate in the event, while fellow locked-in driver Chris Mackey elected to start at the tail. This put Fowler on the pole, where he took the green and held off the field for all 15 laps to pick up the win and a spot in Sunday’s Feature.
“It’s kind of the shorter of the long way to do it,” Fowler said. “We really came here with our mind set on trying to lock-in through time trials, but winning a Heat Race is just as good. You get some extra laps on the car and really figure out what the car’s really gonna want.”
HEAT 1 — 1. 410-Mike Fowler[3]; 2. 72-A Jay Potrzebowski[10]; 3. 26-Ryan Godown[5]; 4. 64-Tyler Corcoran[6]; 5. 17Z-Seth Zacharias[11]; 6. 6-Robert Bublak[4]; 7. Z4-JJ Courcy[15]; 8. R1-Riley Rogala[16]; 9. 75-AJ Custodi[13]; 10. 7Z-Zachary Payne[7]; 11. 33-Ryan Murtaugh[9]; 12. 19C-Brandon Carvey[8]; 13. 27-Jason Reome[18]; 14. 01R-Robert Gage[12]; 15. 28-Jordan Moden[14]; 16. 96-Robert Maxon[17]; 17. 42A-Colby Adamczak[21]; 18. 74-Kelly Smith[19]; 19. 111-Henry Desmoreau[20]; 20. 3M-Chris Mackey[2]; 21. (DNS) 10%-Chad Edwards
Heat Race 2 – Dalton Rombough
Chevy Performance 75 outside polesitter Andrew Buff also chose not to participate in his Heat Race, which put Dalton Rombough on the point for the 15-lap battle.
Michael Fry Photo
Rombough grabbed the lead at the drop of the green and held strong, leading every lap on his way to Victory Lane. He said the longer 75-lap event won’t be a bother to him come Sunday, as he’s taken a liking to the distance challenges.
“I actually like the longer races,” Rombough said. “It’s more consistent, and we’ll have to see what the track does. I really don’t know quite what we’re gonna do just yet.”
HEAT 2 — 1. 41-Dalton Rombough[2]; 2. 70A-Alex Payne[6]; 3. 1XD-Willy Decker Jr[7]; 4. 7-Michael Sabia[8]; 5. 1M-Tyler Murray[17]; 6. 00-Beau Reeves[4]; 7. 02-David Boisclair[20]; 8. 69-Brian Borst[9]; 9. 427-Carter Gibbons[10]; 10. 99M-Brett Martin[18]; 11. 79-Jeffrey Prentice[12]; 12. 22-Nick Plumstead[15]; 13. 5B-Brock Pinkerous[16]; 14. 01-Zach Buff[13]; 15. 1R-Ricky Thompson[21]; 16. 11-Jeffrey Lutes[19]; 17. 1D-Robert Delormier[5]; 18. 52-Ron Proctor[14]; 19. (DNS) 92-Andrew Buff; 20. (DNS) 6V-Tanner VanDoren; 21. (DNS) 49-Chris Jakubiak
Heat Race 3 – Brian Calabrese
Ready for the initial start, now sitting P3 after polesitter Matt Janczuk’s decision to park it for the night, Brian Calabrese stared down the leader’s rear bumper in front of him, still knowing he’d have to at least keep the spot to advance to Sunday’s finale.
Michael Fry Photo
Not only did he keep the transfer spot, he improved on it, passing new polesitter Ryan Dolbear in the opening laps and Matt Guererri for the lead on Lap 12, using the very bottom lane to make the passes and drive to victory.
“The experience over the years… I’ve got a lot of good people telling me in my ear to keep it straight, this and that. We’re finally starting to calm down a little bit and show what we’ve learned over the years,” Calabrese said.
HEAT 3 — 1. 21C-Brian Calabrese[5]; 2. 12G-Matt Guererri[2]; 3. 38-Zach Sobotka[4]; 4. 42B-Justin Buff[9]; 5. 20-Bucko Branham[14]; 6. 31B-Ryan Dolbear[3]; 7. 29-Nick Heywood[7]; 8. 22S-Dylan Swinehart[11]; 9. 63-Teddy Clayton Jr[8]; 10. 284-Jamie Kamrowski[13]; 11. 04-Dale Gonyo Jr[16]; 12. 9-Steve Schrader[18]; 13. R19-Dale Caswell[6]; 14. 3-Justin McKay[10]; 15. 2-Tyler Doxtater[12]; 16. 32RS-Ryan Shanahan[15]; 17. 5KD-Kyle Devendorf[20]; 18. 33X-Matt Janczuk[1]; 19. 51B-Matthew Bourey[19]; 20. (DQ) 12-Jonathan Miller[17]
Heat Race 4 – David Rogers
Putting on a dominant display of driving ability, David Rogers joined Mike Fowler and Dalton Rombough as the only drivers to win their Heat Race and lead every lap Friday night.
Michael Fry Photo
Rogers took command at the drop of the green and led the caution-spotted Feature green-to-checkered to pick up the win and earn himself a spot in the big dance on Sunday.
“I’m ecstatic,” Rogers said. “To come here with 101 cars and do this… This is really the first Super DIRT Week we’ve actually got to run. We’ve been here before, but it just wasn’t good. But, here we are.”
HEAT 4 — 1. 1-David Rogers[3]; 2. 5S-Tanner Siemons[8]; 3. 57H-Remington Hamm[20]; 4. 09-Connor Cleveland[5]; 5. 10G-Austin Germinio[4]; 6. FOX28-Tyler Stevenson[14]; 7. B24-Brendan Gibbons[6]; 8. 96JS-John Stowell[18]; 9. 17J-Brenton Joy[12]; 10. 00G-Joe Gosek[19]; 11. 5-Ryan Neiger[17]; 12. 1S-Andrew Smith[11]; 13. T69-Travis Green[13]; 14. 33XM-Rick Miller[16]; 15. 113JR-Frank Guererri[10]; 16. 1F-AJ Lloyd[2]; 17. 35T-Cameron Tuttle[9]; 18. 8-Alan Fink[1]; 19. (DNS) 99-Griffen Mansmith; 20. (DQ) 14X-Scott Duell[7]
Heat Race 5 – Mike Bruno
Scheduled to start 10th before the green flag dropped, Mike Bruno drove his #22B all the way to the front in 13 laps to pick up the Heat Race win.
Michael Fry Photo
It was one of the more challenging journeys to the front – Bruno had to deal with multiple caution flags and slower cars in his way to get it done.
“We got behind, and we had good practice laps, but we went the wrong way for the gears for the time trials,” Bruno said. “We knew we had a good piece, we just had to get through to get to the Heat Races and basically get up on the wheel.”
HEAT 5 — 1. 22B-Mike Bruno[10]; 2. 18-Chris Cayea[5]; 3. 19-Jamy Begor[9]; 4. 33O-Cody Ochs[4]; 5. 22W-Noah Walker[6]; 6. 3H-Cole Hentschel[3]; 7. 14-Zach Arquiett[7]; 8. 50-William August[20]; 9. 54-Fred Proctor[16]; 10. 10-Michael Delormier[14]; 11. 38S-Kevin Stevens[13]; 12. 44C-Ed Downing[19]; 13. 51-Tim Lafler[8]; 14. 21K-Randy Chrysler[12]; 15. 72H-Kasey Hufcut[11]; 16. 48-Kearra Backus[17]; 17. 42-Daryl Nutting[2]; 18. 13-Teddy Starr[18]; 19. 1X-Justin Stone[1]; 20. (DNS) 5D-Tim Devendorf
