By Jacob Hord, @HordRaceWatcher
The first night of the highly anticipated Gateway Dirt Nationals from The Dome at Americas Center in St. Louis lived up to expectation’s s, and it was Mike Spatola who topped the Thursday preliminary feature.
It all started in Spatola’s heat race. Joseph Joiner led most of the eight-lap heat race, but a late caution was all Spatola needed. Spatola threw a huge slider on Joiner going into turn one, and somehow, it stuck. Spatola went on to the heat win, and would get to redraw for his feature starting spot. The spot he drew? Pole. Joiner would start on the sixth row, a big difference if that slider hadn’t have stuck.
Spatola would be joined on the front row by Ashton Winger. Right off the start of the 25 lap, $5,000 to win preliminary feature, Spatola and Winger made contact. They both regrouped quickly and barged into turn one, where Spatola would gain the advantage on the inside of Winger. Spatola’s lead held steady around the .775 mark for the first few circuits around the one-fifth mile oval. After a pre-race track prep session, most of the field was running around the top of the track.
By lap seven, Spatola was nearing lapped traffic and Winger was closing in. Winger threw his own slider on Spatola on lap ten in turns three and four, but it didn’t stick. Heavy traffic greeted Spatola again on lap 11, and Winger was getting his machine wound back up on the top to make another run at Spatola. On lap 15, Winger threw another slider, this time in turns one and two, but Spatola fended off Winger, who ended up making contact with the wall.
The following lap, the one and only caution came out for debris. Under caution, Winger had smoke pouring out from near his left front wheel. On the Delaware-Double restart, Winger chose the inside, putting third running Ryan Gustin to his outside, Spatola by his lonesome in the front row. Brandon Sheppard made his way past Gustin for third as Spatola worked up a 1.174 second lead. It was a clear track for Spatola who had a 1.252 second lead on lap 21 as Sheppard caught up to Winger. Spatola had a 1.514 second lead on the final lap and cruised to the win, his first at The Dome.