The second and final trek into ‘The Great White North’ kicked off on Friday for the World of Outlaws as Craig Dollansky made his eleventh appearance at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, Alberta that includes 7 top-tens with 3 top-fives.
With 24 drivers signed in for the Oil City Cup Opener, Dollansky got a good feel for the track in hotlaps and followed it up with the 4th fastest time around the 3/8-mile in time trials. In heat #1 the Big Game Treestands #7 took the green from inside row two and finished 5th to earn a spot in the dash by virtue of the strong qualifying lap. In the 8-lap dash, an inversion of four put the MobileStar Maxim on the pole and went on to finish 2nd.
Starting alongside Donny Schatz for the 30-lap A-Main, the World of Outlaws point leader used the highside to his advantage when the green flag waved to motor into the lead and approach lapped traffic by just lap 4. With Schatz closing four circuits later, ‘The Crow Pleaser’ made some bold moves knifing through the back-markers to maintain the top spot. As racing continued by lap 13 Kerry Madsen put a slide-job on the Aggressive Hydraulics backed sprinter in turn 3 but Dollansky turned it under the #29 to hold the lead until the first caution on lap 17.
On the outside for the double-file restart, Dollansky brought the field up to speed until another yellow four laps later. Following two additional cautions on lap 22, the Elk River, Minnesota native widened the gap between himself and the competition until the final stoppage came by way of a red flag with three circuits remaining. When action resumed ‘The Crowd Pleaser’ was not going to be denied victory as he jumped on the throttle and cruised to the checkered flag for the 7th time this season.
“What a fun race. That was a fun race car and been a little while since we had a car that good,” commented the driver of the Eaton’s Aeroquip Performance Products #7. “It was a fun track that can be demanding with the heavy lapped traffic we had. We were going around the outside, inside, and splitting some of them. Really we were getting through lapped traffic pretty good but there was so much of it.
“I couldn’t be happier for this entire team, my crew of DJ, Luke, and Sean work really hard. Big Game Treestands, Aggressive Hydraulics, MobileStar, Aeroquip, and everyone back home. We have a great support system for this team and hope all the Canadian fans enjoyed the show and look forward to Saturday.”
The Big Game Treestands #7 team concludes racing in Canada tonight at Castrol Raceway with the Oil City Cup Finale.
