New Egypt- New Jersey You won’t see a pyramid or a camel but what you saw was a determined Daryn Pittman going about collecting his fourth win in succession at new Egypt .With the Posse looking to have the Outlaws eating their dust around New Egypt. Right from qualifying Hodnett looked like he would dominate the night, posting fast time during qualifying and leading every lap of his heat and the dash. The pill draw was a 0 so it ensures Hodnett’s good early pace would be rewarded with pole for the 30 lap a main.
Hodnett had the Lelands.com/Eagle Steel No. 27, working nicely out front and controlled the race right up until lap 16 when the three times Jersey Outlaw Classic winner found fast way round the top to first pass Mark Smith in the Mach 1 Chassis No. M1 before he grabbed the point from Hodnett.
Once into the race lead Pittman built a gap between the chasing Posses but the lap traffic slowed the #15 and towards the race ends Hodnett found the top and started to close in on the Great Clips #15.The New Egypt event was the successive night that Hodnett had lost the race lead late and had to be content with the runner up spot.
Post race interviews :
Daryn Pittman “I’ve been really frustrated with myself with how many front-row starts I’ve had this year and as few wins,” Pittman said. “I got up this morning and thought ‘Man, third is where I want to start’ – I just had that feeling this morning that if I start third I was going to win.”Things went our way and we ended up starting third.”
“We haven’t been struggling by any means, but we needed a win,” Pittman said. “This really makes me feel good, and makes them feel good going back home to Charlotte this week. We’ve had some pretty bad finishes but hopefully this can erase that and we can get on a better streak of just running up front.”I felt like I was struggling [later in the race]…Those last four laps, I didn’t feel like I made any of them very good, so I wasn’t breathing good until I saw them throw the checkered.”
Greg Hodnett ““I didn’t go up there until he passed and then I realized there was a whole other track to run on. We kind of caught him again in traffic and passed a couple lapped cars, but we just needed to keep running. He was definitely the faster car; we just needed him to slow down a little bit through some lapped traffic.”
Mark Smith “”I was hoping to come down here and just get a top five, but we got a top three and we’re up here on the podium.” Smith said. “I kept trying different lanes to try and make some time up on Greg Hodnett], then I heard somebody, that ended up being Daryn.”He was a lot better than us and drove by us. We were about the same speed as Greg, but we just couldn’t go through lapped traffic like Daryn could”
Race results New Egypt:
A-Main – (30 Laps) – 1. 9-Daryn Pittman [3][$6,000]; 2. 27-Greg Hodnett [1][$3,500]; 3. M1-Mark Smith [2][$2,000]; 4. 49-Brad Sweet [4][$1,800]; 5. 747-Davey Sammons [10][$1,500]; 6. 5-David Gravel [12][$1,400]; 7. 2-Shane Stewart [6]$1,350]; 8. 83-Joey Saldana [5][$1,300]; 9. 19M-Brent Marks [9][$1,250]; 10. 15-Donny Schatz [16][$1,200]; 11. 13X-Tim Shaffer [13][$900]; 12. 7-Paul McMahan [8][$800]; 13. 94-Ryan Smith [14][$700]; 14. 48-Danny Dietrich [11][$650]; 15. 41-Jason Johnson [18][$600]; 16. 28F-Davie Franek [20][$550]; 17. 1S-Logan Schuchart [24][$500]; 18. 7S-Jason Sides [23][$500]; 19. 89-Robbie Stillwagon [17][$500]; 20. 5W-Lucas Wolfe [7][$500]; 21. 21K-Kyle Reinhardt [21][$500]; 22. 7WD-Logan Wagner [19][$500]; 23. 98-Joe Trenca [22][$500]; 24. 45-Kevin Nagy [15][$500]. Lap Leaders: Greg Hodnett 1-16, Daryn Pittman 17-30. KSE Hard Charger Award: 1S-Logan Schuchart [+7].
Photo credits Woo and Pete McDonald
The next race in the Craftsmans World of Outlaws series will be at the Dirt Track Charlotte on May 27th
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