Dave Porter pulls off another win at Spartan Speedway

It was a beautiful day at the Spartan Speedway as the drivers from N4Nites pulled out onto the track to take the green flag.

Eight drivers made up the field for the start.  Practice times were incredibly fast with a couple of drivers flirting with laps in the 24 second range.

Bob Moore has a bit of early problems and solo spins.  He garaged his car shortly after - probably sustained a mechanical problem during the incident.

Lap 51 after a set of green flag pit stops, Billy Squire (31) gets tail ended when Alex Shoemaker (01) hits the apron line and gets "squirrelly".  Billy suffered tail end damage when he back ended the outer wall and the caution came out.
A run for the lead on lap 54, Dave (24) overpowers Dennie (37) for the lead - John (49) followed close behind and left the 37 hung out to dry.

Final lap - Dennie pressures John for 2nd but spins coming out of the turn.  Dennie lost 3rd and finished 6th.  Trying to make the underpass on Dave, but the pinch low keeps John at bay and Dave crosses the line for the win.  An intense final lap.

Dave has been gifted a new nickname "Houdini" by his peers because of his ability to seeming come out from no where and win the race.  This race, Dave started pole, fell back to last - then went a lap down after entering the pits on the second lap and the race going green.  Dave lucked into a late caution being last car on the tail end of the lead lap.  Pitted early while others came in to the pits after, went green with less than 20 to go from second place and overtook the leader for the win.   An amazing feat of magic performed tonight.
Jeff Prutzman finished 4th after a long battle with a loose car.  #47, Bobby Rafuse finished 7th.  He too had a handful of car to deal with during the race running in loose conditions.

POST RACE INTERVIEWS

Jamie Little:  Alex, what happened tonight?
Alex  Our car was junk and this was the first time being on the track.   I tried adjusting but nothing worked.  Qualed 3rd, Finished 6th.  Got into Billy early on and also had issues on pit road which kept putting me behind the 8-ball.   I had a bunch of "stop and goes" once I tried short pitting but I was 2 laps down so I was hosed early on.

Jeff  We managed to finish this race with no damage.  We were working with our Dover setup at first but it needed alot of changes.  Mangaed to get it competitive but we were just a tad bit slow on our pitstops.  I think that if we were quicker on and off pitroad we would have been up there fighting for the win.

Jamie Little:  Were you surprised about anything this race?
Jeff:  How about that - two cautions.  The pit road problems took some drivers by surprise too.  Touching the grass = 30 seconds in the pits.

Jamie Little:  Any last words Jeff?
Jeff:  Well, at least I was king for a week.  We are going to practice next weeks track early.  I'm getting better at those road courses.

Jamie Little:  Dennie, you're new to N4Nites, how do you like it so far?
Dennie:  I think its great league - a lot of clean respectful drivers, that's the way I like it.  I came on over from IFRT.  Tonight we started 5th, finished 5th or 6th.  I just had a good time racing.  I ran out of gas on the last lap - knew I would but didn't make any difference if I pitted or not position wise - guys would have passed me anyway.

Jamie Little:  So that wasn't your strategy at first?
Dennie:  No, there was no strategy really - I didn't know the track so kinda following behind Boneske on first run was how I got used to the track and ran it to the end that way.  We pitted with John, but when he got a penalty, I thought we had a pretty decent chance.  Then the last caution came out - pitted for 4 tires and gas but for some reason there was confusion on how much fuel to take and we didn't get enough.   I thought we were OK but under green - got caught short and there was nothing I could do then.  Just got caught ¾ lap short on fuel.

Jamie Little:  Did you feel the win go away at that point?
Dennie:  Well, on that last restart - I could keep up but the win got away on that last restart when a few guys got passed me.  I knew I was done at that point but I could at least keep up with the fast runners and give them a run, just couldn't pass them but they didn't know that.  I had no problems with 3rd, but it was my pit crew put the screws to me - have to up my game next time.

Jamie Little:  Since we haven't talked to you much, how long have you been racing?
Dennie:  2004 when N03 first came out, started out with bunch of guys called WOR, REBS after that - Wide Open, raced with CREW, IFRT, SRS, Now with N4Nites and CARS and it's the kind of racing I enjoy.  Again, clean, fun, respectful.

Jamie Little:  And now you're here with us - and its good to have you.

John:  All of my setups I get from my cat, Bob.  No really, owe it all to Dave Porter - It was phenomenal.  Turns 1 and 2 it was a rocket - 3 and 4 a little tight but awesome all around.  Racing for Dave has improved me a lot (just having a team mate has helped) but having a teammate like him has helped my ability to race 100%.  Tonight I was running 25.5, 25.4's but with Dave's help - the car came around big time (25.0's).  It would have been a 3rd place car without his help.   Next week - I'm not a road course winner by any means, I got lucky at Watkins Glen, I just hope to finish next week.  And I owe everything to my cat BOB.

Dave:  Wow - this was a rare race where I can finally say we actually DID have the car to beat tonight.  Very fast, very smooth - It was like taking a Sunday drive around the track.  Seems like the other drivers were having a bit of a problem on the track where it made our run easy.  I helped out our teammate John with a setup and we really seemed to dominate the majority of the race.  We had a 30 second penalty entering pit road for touching the grass line and I thought we were gone'ers at that point because the rest of the race just continued.  We went down a lap.  We did manage to get ahead of the leader when the last caution came out - that which SAVED US.  Once we came about the track - lined up - we found ourselves in second and poised for the green.  After the race, we were advised that I burned off $286.00 dollars worth of stickers from the right side of the car.  Yea, we scraped the wall slightly, but I certainly didn't think it would cost that much to get it fixed.