​RECAP: Pierce, Strand, Schill & Flaten Visit RydellCars.com Victory Lane!

Mike Spieker photo

​By Mike Spieker

GRAND FORKS, ND (August 6) - The Premier Racing Series was back in action Friday night at River Cities Speedway, presented by Orchard Oil and LePier Oil Company. A solid field of 92 race teams were signed in among the four divisions. Dustin Strand, Lance Schill, and Ryan Flaten took home the WISSOTA PolyDome Dirt Track Series checkered flags, while Austin Pierce captured the NOSA Sprint Car win.

Pierce capitalized on a late-race restart to get by Casey Mack with two laps to go and cruise to his first RCS win of the season and second overall.

“I always hope to get at least one win here,” said Austin in RydellCars.com Victory Lane. “We’ve been running in the top five a lot here lately so it feels good to finally get a win.”

Chris Ranten took the early lead from his front row starting position, but he was overtaken by Jordan Adams on lap three. The 20-year-old Reynolds, ND driver paced the pack for the next five circuits until Mark Dobmeier caught the Home of Economy #20A in lapped traffic and took the lead.

Once out front, Dobmeier looked to have his ninth consecutive River Cities Speedway win all wrapped up, but the right rear tire exploded on the “Dynamite’s” #13 machine leaving the door wide open for second and third-place running Casey Mack and Pierce.

On the final Evergreen Insurance restart Mack drove to the moisture on the low side of the speedway, while Pierce hammered the cushion up top. Pierce’s momentum carried him around Mack and into the lead, which he held for the last three laps to score the win.

“It’s really hard to win here,” continued Pierce, the two-time and defending RCS track champion. “Just like what happened here tonight, it almost takes a misfortune [for Dobmeier] but we were able to capitalize on that tonight. I saw that Casey [Mack] was running the bottom and catching Mark and I figured if Casey was going to stick to the bottom, I could get a good run around him on the top. The track crew did a crew job tonight with the track, we had both a top and bottom to run on.”

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Mike Spieker photo.

Dustin Strand parked his RealTruck.com #71 Millenium in victory lane for the second week in a row with his win in the UpNorth Financial WISSOTA Late Models.

Strand started back in the seventh position, but climbed his way up the running order each lap until he reached the second position on lap five. The defending RCS track champion got by Edginton on lap 14, it wasn’t pretty. While battling lapped traffic Edginton and Strand made contact coming out of turn four and both drivers nearly spun into the infield. When they emerged from the dust, Strand had the lead with Bill Mooney running in second. With Mooney right on his heels, Strand had to be perfect through the dense lapped traffic in the closing laps.
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At one point, Mooney closed the cap to within one car length, but that would be as close as he could get as Strand went on to take the win over Mooney, Edginton, Zach Naastad, and Mike Balcaen.

Mike Spieker photo.

For the fourth time in 2016, Lance Schill was a winner in the Happy Harry’s Midwest Modifieds.

Jeremy Lizakowski and Dallas Brevik led the field of 23 to the green flag with Lizakowski taking the lead. A series of caution slowed the pace for the first half of the race, but Lisakowski was able to remain the leader, until the restart on lap 11.

That’s when Schill flexed his muscle and drove around Lisakowski’s #96 machine to take the lead. Ricky Hamel was right in the mix as well and the top three drivers broke away from the pack in the late stages.
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Hamel caught Lizakowski and they raced hard for the runner-up spot, which allowed Schill to distance himself. On the final lap Hamel cleared Lizakowski for second as Schill went on to take the win.  

Mike Spieker photo.

Bryce Reimer and Steven Richards started on the pole for the 15 lap Wells Concrete Street Stock feature. Reimer lead the first three laps before Ryan Flaten stole the top spot. Flaten went on to lead the remainder of the event, but he had his hands full with Ryan Johnson in the final laps. Johnson cut down Flaten’s lead from 10 car lengths to just five car length in two laps, but ran out of time as Flaten took the win.
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Reimer, Travis Robetson, and Steven Richards rounded out the top five.