Griffith Sweeps Easter Bunny Weekend Wins At Hickory
HICKORY, NC (April 3) –Derek Griffith withstood a race-long battle with Joey Polewarcyzk to take the win for the Pro All Stars Series (PASS) Super Late Models Saturday night in the 16th Annual Easter Bunny 150 at Hickory Motor Speedway. With his win, Griffith swept the weekend twins to become the first driver since Preston Peltier to score back-to-back Easter Bunny 150 wins.
“They definitely made me work harder for it tonight, I knew Joey [Polewarcyzk] was on rails and he would be tough to beat,” said Griffith after his second straight PASS National Championship win. “I was trying to save my stuff a little, better than I did last night, and bide my time but Joey was tough, and luckily I had enough at the end.”
Griffith started the 150-lap race in fourth after having the fastest lap in qualifying and like Friday night, Carson Hocevar jumped out to the lead from the pole position. But, by lap 17, Polewarcyzk had reeled in Hocevar to take the lead. Hocevar’s night would end shortly after when his car came to a stop on lap 59 with engine problems.
On the restart, Griffith would get the advantage from the outside of row one to take the lead away from Polewarcyzk for the first time. They ran nose-to-tail for the next several laps, joined by DJ Shaw and Mike Hopkins. On lap 97, Polewarcyxk challenged Griffith for the lead in turn one, but in turn three Shaw would poke the nose of his Ford to the inside of Polewarcyzk. The two made contact, causing Shaw to spin and bring out the second caution of the race.
Following a backstretch spin by Jeremy Miller on lap 112, Polewarcyzk was able to wrestle the lead away from Griffith. The hardest crash of the night waved just two laps later when Evan Hallstrom broke something in the rear end of his car entering turn three. Hallstrom would spin and collect Trevor Sanborn, while Ben Rowe slammed hard into the outside wall as he tried to avoid the spinning cars.
On the restart, Griffith powered back by Polewarcyzk and would never look back. Griffith led the rest of the way to take the win over Polewarcyzk, Hopkins, Shaw, and Jake Matheson. Rounding out the top 10 were Cory Casagrande, Lucas Ransone, Ryan Kuhn, Travis Benjamin, and Gabe Brown.
The next PASS National Championship Super Late Model race will be on Saturday, April 10th at Connecticut’s Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park as part of the Icebreaker weekend.
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Sources: Alan Dietz/PASS PR