Zach Sobotka was the DIRTcar Sportsman driver to beat Saturday night at Brockville-Ontario Speedway’s Fall Nationals.
The 50-lap, $2,100-to-win, Feature saw Shane Stearns and Nicholas Root on the front row to start the night off. Fresh off a second place finish during the Chevrolet Performance 75 at Super DIRT Week 51 at Oswego Speedway, Root found his way out in front by the end of the first lap. Sobotka trailed close behind, just as hungry to battle for a win. The Parish, NY driver was able to make his way around Root right before the half way point, taking the lead on Lap 23.
The maneuver ended up being the climax of the contention, as Sobotka ticked off the remaining 27 laps unchallenged, going on to score his second DIRTcar Sportsman Series win of the season and his first career win at Brockville-Ontario Speedway.
“I’ve had pretty decent runs here,” Sobotka said. “I figured it was going to rubber up there towards the end down there on the bottom. I was looking to get into the redraw and just have a good run. (Nick Root) was trying to pick the top there on some restarts. I wasn’t quite sure what to do there sometimes. I felt like the bottom was better on the restarts and it just worked out.”
Fifteen-year-old Root held on to post another second place finish behind Sobotka, continuing to show his future potential in the division.
“It was fun,” Root said. “This place is definitely one of the trickiest tracks I’ve raced. We’ll just come back here next year and hopefully try to race for a championship. We’ll just take what we learned here this week and take it to next year.”
Behind the two frontrunners, Bobby Herrington charged his way back from as far back as 20th place to third by Lap 20, and went on to round out the podium with a third place finish.
“It was tough track conditions early,” Herrington said. “We kind of expected that with the schedule today, but we’re happy with a top-three tonight.”
Andrew Buff finished in 11th place, officially capturing the 2023 DIRTcar Sportsman title.
“Yeah, thank God we had enough points to stay up top because the last two races we weren’t too good,” Buff said. “We got a lot of good stuff, we’ll take it back home and get ready for the next one.”
Jessica Power finished in fourth place and Tristan Ladouceur finished in fifth place.
DIRTcar Sportsman Championship (50 Laps): 1. 38-Zach Sobotka[4]; 2. 30-Nicholas Root[2]; 3. 88Z-Bobby Herrington[5]; 4. 52-Jessica Power[8]; 5. 92T-Tristan Ladouceur[6]; 6. 88K-Dylan Kirkland[14]; 7. 18E-Gavin Eisele[9]; 8. 38S-Sean Imbeault[12]; 9. 17F-Fire Swamp[16]; 10. 98-Domonick Merkley[7]; 11. 92-Andrew Buff[3]; 12. 91-Kraig Handley[20]; 13. 21T-Trey Ladouceur[25]; 14. 707-Greg Brinklow[18]; 15. 25-Pierre Picard[28]; 16. 11J-Justin Saunders[26]; 17. 03-Joshua Jock[13]; 18. 16-Matthew Prunner[19]; 19. 88F-Frederic Scott[24]; 20. (DNF) 23N-Nathan Peattie[30]; 21. (DNF) 21CL-Terry Ladouceur[15]; 22. (DNF) 21L-Skylar Ladouceur[23]; 23. (DNF) 32-Tyler Stewart[11]; 24. (DNF) 17M-Madie Wallace[29]; 25. (DNF) 23-Michael Dillon[21]; 26. (DNF) 18J-Jordan Wood[22]; 27. (DNF) 22S-Shane Stearns[1]; 28. (DNF) 39-Cory Lambert[27]; 29. (DNF) 35B-Brennan Moore[17]; 30. (DNS) 0M-Shane Pecore
