BECKLEY, W.Va. — Zack Dohm made it to the front of the pack in the nick of time Saturday night at Beckley Motorsports Park.
The 30-year-old Cross Lanes, W.Va., driver worked around Jacob Hawkins exiting the final corner of the Honor the Legends 60, winning by inches at the checkers to earn $10,000 in the unsanctioned special event for Super Late Models.
Dohm, who started outside the fourth row in the 18-car field, grabbed his first five-figure victory of the season with the thrilling home-state victory at the high-banked 3/8-mile oval.
"Going into (turn) three on the last lap, I thought (Hawkins) pulled me a little bit too much down the back straightaway. But I drove it in there up high, way harder than I had been the whole race, and it stuck," Dohm said in victory lane. "I just hoped to God I could get up beside of him enough to where we wouldn't wreck each other coming down the front straightaway, and it worked out. I don't know how many thousandths (of a second) we won by, but it couldn't have been many."
The third-starting Hawkins, the Fairmont, W.Va., driver who led laps 15-59, settled for the runner-up spot while outside front-row starter Brandon Overton of Evans, Ga., was a distant third. Father-and-son racers from Parkersburg, W.Va. — Freddie Carpenter, who led the first 14 laps from the pole, and Tyler Carpenter, who rallied after a lap-26 spin — rounded out the top five.
The elder Carpenter, who started on the pole by virtue of his dash victory, took command early with Overton and Hawkins giving chase.
Hawkins used the low groove to work under Overton, then challenged the leading Carpenter amid traffic, sliding into the lead exiting turn four on the 13th lap and pulling away to leading comfortably with several lapped cars between the leader and the pursuing pack of Overton, Freddie Carpenter, Tyler Carpenter and Dohm.
After a turn-four spin for Ted Johnson reset the field on the 24th lap, Hawkins again pulled away while Dohm again battled with the Carpenters, pressuring Freddie for third in turn two at the same time Tyler spun by himself in turn one on the 26th lap to draw the race's second and final yellow flag.
On the restart, Hawkins led Overton and Dohm back to the checkers while Freddie Carpenter used the high groove to try and keep up with the lead trio.
While Hawkins led by a half-straightaway at the race's mid point, Dohm worked underneath Overton to take the second spot while the leader enjoyed clear racetrack.
With two-thirds of the race complete, Hawkins maneuvered through slower cars high and low while Dohm gave chase, edging every closer to getting within striking distance while the third-running Overton was falling further behind.
Inside the final 10 laps, Dohm pulled within a few car lengths of Hawkins, who continued to run the inside groove while Dohm ran higher. With five laps remaining, Hawkins was slowed by tight traffic, forcing the leader off the bottom and allowing Dohm to pull up on the the rear deck of the Hawkins machine.
At the white flag, the low-running Hawkins slid up the frontstretch to close the door on the high-running Dohm, who lost ground to the leader. On the final lap, Dohm again charged hard into the high groove in turns three and four, slinging his car around Hawkins at the checkers to grab a victory by the slimmest of margins.
"As long as the track gets slick and smooth like it did tonight, I feel like we can beat anybody," said Dohm, who also had a pair of $10,000 victories at Beckley in 2012-13. "We got up through there. I knew we had a good car. Once I got by Freddie and Overton, they showed the halfway, I thought, ’All right, we've got 30 laps to reel Jake in.’ I knew he had a softer tire on than I did. Hell, I looked up and (the flagger was signalling) two (laps) to go, and I thought, ’Man, I've gotta do something.’ So I just started entering (the corner) where he wasn't, trying to get a little bit of clean air."
Hawkins was surprised at Dohm's last-ditch charge.
"I definitely didn't expect him to be there on the last lap. I don't know, I should've got a little wider. Congratulations to him and his crew," Hawkins said. "The car was good. We gambled a little bit with tire — we went soft, and just that long run, I couldn't really dig up off the bottom anymore like I was. But it is what it is. Sometimes you get them to go your way, sometimes you don't, and this year it's just not going our way. Again, congratulations to Zack. It's still a good run and we'll take second, but it's just a big pay (drop) for second."
Notes: Dohm got his first $10,000 victory since a July 13, 2018, triumph on the DIRTcar Summer Nationals at Oakshade Raceway in Wauseon, Ohio. ... Dohm notched his sixth victory of the season and his first outside of Kentucky. ... He earned $3,000 a week earlier at Richmond (Ky.) Raceway and also has Bluegrass State victories at Junction City's Ponderosa Speedway.
