Anthony Macri Capitalizes On Chase Dietz's DNQ To Win Round 7 At Hagerstown Speedway

Anthony Macri entered Thursday's PA Speedweek stop at Hagerstown Speedway trailing Chase Dietz by 65 points in the championship standings. He left with a 72-point lead.

Dietz's title hopes took a major hit when a throttle issue in his heat race forced him into the B-main. The four-time Speedweek winner rallied from 11th to fifth but came up one spot short of transferring to the feature, opening the door for Macri to claim his third victory of the miniseries and execute a stunning 137-point swing in the standings.

But Macri said his focus never drifted to the points race.

"Points aside, I'm not worried about that throughout the night," Macri said. "I know we had a job to do. Obviously that job is the same thing every single night, and that's to win the race. Hats off to my guys for working really hard in the heat."

Though Macri ended up leading all 30 laps from the outside pole, his Macri Motorsports team "changed a lot of stuff on this car throughout the night" from qualifying — when they timed fifth in Group A, three tenths off fast-timer James McFadden — to the feature. A heat race win from the outside pole put him in position for the redraw, which he took care of business from there.

"We made the right call there before the feature. I just tried my best to get through lapped traffic the whole race," he said. "I just tried to be smart and read the track, see where i might've been faster or slower. I didn't feel like the top was the place to be, but through lapped traffic I kinda had to make my moves in the top of one and two. 

"I was pretty good on the top in three and four. ... I had to commit to the top down there for my car to lay left."

Article Credit: Kyle McFadden, Floracing