Lance Dewease Takes the Night Before the 50 With the All Star Circuit of Champions at Port Royal Speedway

By Kenny Varner Jr.
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Updated: September 12, 2020

Courtesy of Port Royal Speedway

Jeff Rine Wins Super Late Model Feature While Logan Wagner and Andy Haus Wrap Up Points Titles

By- Justin Snyder

Port Royal Speedway- PORT ROYAL, Penn. (Sept. 11, 2020)- Lance Dewease outdueled Anthony Macri and Kyle Larson to pick up the Night Before the 50 victory with the Ollie’s Bargain Outlets All Star Circuit of Champions presented by Mobil 1Friday night during the 166th Annual Juniata County Fair at the Port Royal Speedway.

The win was the 40th career All Star triumph for the Keystone state favorite and the 114th all-time victory for Dewease at the Juniata County oval. Courtesy of Ted Reitz, the triumph paid $6000 to win and leaves Dewease asvs favoritebas he heads into Saturday night‘s $53,000 finale looking for his record seventh Tuscarora 50 title.

“We were really good all night. We needed that to get our confidence going as we havn’t had the best of seasons up until now,” said Dewease. “The race is 30 laps and we just wanted to get to the end. I knew if I could get to them they might slip up and I was just waiting my time for an opportunity.”

Australian invader Kerry Madsen and Larson lined up on the front row for the 30-lap affair and Madsen pulled a slider on Larson entering turn one to go to the point. However, the former NASCAR star showed why he’s been so successful at the speedway by ducking back under him to take the lead exiting turn four and led lap one.

Macri, who started third threaded the needle between Dewease and Madsen on the frontstretch the following lap. Dewease moved into third as well. One lap later the only caution of the night flew when Paul McMahan stopped on the backstretch.

As he has so many times already this season, Larson blasted out to a half straightaway lead following the restart. By lap 10, Dewease was all over Macri for the runner-up position and he was working the bottom of the speedway with perfection.

“Anthony has been so good here this year and he really knows how to get around this place up top,” said Dewease. “I was trying a few things and he was pulling away form me so I knew I had to get back to the bottom and just be patient.”

Lapped traffic entered the picture on lap 12 and that allowed both Macri and Dewease to start chipping away at Larson’s advantage. With 15 laps to go, the top three were all under a blanket and Macri took his shot by throwing a slider entering turn three to briefly take the lead, but Larson again powered under to hold the lead heading to the flagstand.

Larson briefly went to the bottom of the track in an effort to protect his lead, but found that he was better up top and opened back up a near 1.0 second advantage two laps later. Macri again closed the distance on lap 18 and he tried the same move again in turn’s three and four, which Larson held on by a nose to lead the lap.

With 10 laps to go, Macri tried again in turn one and two, but Larson again ducked under him coming down the backstretch to stay up front.

“I think as a driver if I had been a little smarter I might have held up a bit,” said Macri. “He was right in my sights and I got a little excited and I think we needed to wait just a little bit.”

With the leaders throwing haymakers at each other, Dewease saw his opportunity he’d been patiently waiting for. With all three podium drivers within a few car-lengths, Dewease made his move on lap 25 as he shot past Macri in turn’s one and two and he slid under Larson entering turn three to take the lead coming off four.

“I actually thought Kyle was going to come down and take my momentum and he never did,” said Dewease. “I don’t know if he expected me to make that move, but we got past him and that’s an accomplishment in itself.”

Dewease searched the track throughout the final five laps to find the best way around in clean air, but nobody was going to touch him as he cruised home to the checkered flag by a margin of 2.484 seconds.

“You know Kyle beat me once earlier this year and he waved at me when he passed me at Williams Grove,” said Dewease. “I wasn’t going to let that happen again. Those guys were both going really hard and you have to on a track like this. But I don’t get passed too often once I get the lead and here we are tonight.”

Macri was able to get by Larson on the white flag lap to secure the second spot and believes he has a car capable of finishing one spot higher Saturday night.

“To run second to Lance and to finish ahead of Kyle, we are definitely doing something right,” said Macri. “We’ll do our homework a little and scratch our heads and see if we can be sitting one better tomorrow night.”

Larson, Dylan Cisney and Rico Abreu made up the top five, while Madsen, Thursday’s winner Cory Eliason, Brent Marks, Danny Dietrich and Ian Madesn filled out the top-10. Brock Zearfodss finished 11th and gained 15 positions to earn the $500 hard charger courtesy of Valley Supply Inc.

Logan Wagner finished 16th to lock up his third consecutive Weikert’s Livestock 410 Sprint Car championship at the speedway as well.

“It’s been a sort of up and down season and it was soo cool to race down to the end with my dad for a point championship,” said Wagner. “I’m glad we could come out on top, but now we turn our focus to the Tuscarora 50 and see if we can’t cap off this weekend with some more success.”

A-Main (30 Laps)

69K-Lance Dewease [4]; 2. 39M-Anthony Macri [3]; 3. 57-Kyle Larson [2]; 4. 5C-Dylan Cisney [10]; 5. 24-Rico Abreu [12]; 6. 2M-Kerry Madsen [1]; 7. 26-Cory Eliason [6]; 8. 5-Brent Marks [5]; 9. 48-Danny Dietrich [13]; 10. 17-Ian Madsen [11]; 11. 70-Cale Thomas [9]; 12. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss [27]; 13. 51-Freddie Rahmer [21]; 14. 7BC-Tyler Courtney [8]; 15. 87-Aaron Reutzel [7]; 16. 1-Logan Wagner [18]; 17. 98-Jared Esh [24]; 18. 99-Skylar Gee [16]; 19. 11T-TJ Stutts [14]; 20. 11-Zeb Wise [17]; 21. 55-Mike Wagner [22]; 22. 39T-Justin Peck [19]; 23. 21-Brian Brown [23]; 24. 42-Sye Lynch [20]; 25. 13-Paul McMahan [25]; 26. 18-Gio Scelzi [15]; 27. 25-Tyler Bear [26]

Lap Leaders: Kyle Larson (1-24), Lance Dewease (25-30

Super Late Models

Jeff Rine capitalized on a front row starting spot to pick up the River Valley Builders Super Late Model feature win over pole sitter Trent Brenneman and Gary Stuhler.

The feature event win was worth $3000 courtesy of Ted Reitz and moved Rine solely into 10th all time on the wins list of the speedway in late model competition with 25

“Finally we got one here this year. Starting position means so much at this place,” said Rine. “That last restart saved us as my tires needed cooled off and we were able to make it work.”

Trent Brenneman led the majority of the race from the pole position, but Rine and Colton Flinner were hot in pursuit for the first half of the race.

Rine was closing rapidly on the bottom of the speedway, but a three car incident with 10 laps to go gave Brenneman clean air and a clean start.

When the field returned to green flag action, Rine got a run on the outside of turn one and exited turn two with the lead. Stuhler also dispatched of Flinner on the restart to move into the podium position and was all over Brenneman for second.

Brenneman rebounded over the next several laps and was closing on Rine with three to go. However, Rine was too good in clean air and took the checkers by a 2.027 advantage.

Brenneman, Stuher, Ross Robinson and Dylan Yoder rounded out the top five. Flinner, Dan Stone, Andy Haus, Brett Schadel and Jim Yoder made up the top ten.

“I was getting signals that Flinner was on the top back there and I knew Trent was going to be tough form the front row, but we found something here recently and this car was just great,” said Rine. “I wish we’d been a little better earlier this year, but it’s nice to close out the year in this new victory lane.”

With his seventh-place finish, Haus wrapped up the track championship in the Super Late Model division as well.

“It’s been a short season, but we spent a lot of long nights working in the garage to get to this point,” said Haus. “We were way off tonight and we went through a lot of equipment to get to this point. The competition here is as good as it gets and it’s unbelievable to be sitting here as a champion.”

Results- 1. Jeff Rine 2. Trent Brenneman 3. Gary Stuhler 4. Ross Robinson 5. Dylan Yoder 6. Colton Flinner 7. Dan Stone 8. Andy Haus 9. Brett Schadel 10. Jim Yoder 11. Mike Lupfer 12.Scott Flickinger 13. Hayes Mattern 14. Dillan Stake 15. Matt Sponaugle 16. Chad Myers 17. Jeff Miller 18. Kody Lyter 19. Cory Lawler 20. Dave Stamm 21. Marvin Winters 22. Trevor Feathers 23. Kyle Lee 24. Deshawn Gingerich 25. Gene Kanub DNS- Nick Dickson