Great Falls Sprint Car Saturday Night

Dietz caps ASCS Frontier championship with Electric City checkers
By Andrew Kunas

GREAT FALLS, Mont. - Phil Dietz put an exclamation point on his 2015 ASCS Frontier Region championship season when he dominated Saturday's Montana Round-Up finale at Electric City Speedway and led all 25 laps of the A-Feature event to pick up his fourth win of the season.

The Laurel, Montana driver, piloting the Dietz Prevost Racing No. 72 Kistler-powered Maxim, drew the pole position for the main event in the Top 8 redraw right off the bat after posting the top passing points score in heat race action. No one threatened the now five-time Montana sprint car champion for the lead at any point during the race.

Dietz won his four previous Montana championships under four different banners. Dietz, 31, won the Montana Sprint Tour title in 2003, the Big Sky Sprint Tour title in 2007, the Big Sky Sprints championship in 2012 and the inaugural ASCS Frontier Region championship in 2013.

Dietz won June 19th at Electric City Speedway after the initial winner was disqualified post-race, but Dietz crossed the finish line first on two occasions later on, taking checkered flags at Gallatin Speedway on August 14th and September 12th. The four victories followed a winless 2014 season.

Meanwhile, second place in the point standings unofficially changed hands. Billings, Mont. driver David Hoiness entered the evening with a 44-point advantage over Leduc, Alberta's Skylar Gee. Hoiness, however, was running in the Top 5 when he went for a wild tumble entering the front stretch after apparent contact with another car with 13 laps completed.

After the disastrous turn of events for Hoiness, Gee then passed Joe Perry on the final corner on Lap 25 to steal second place aboard the Gee Racing No. 99 AMS-powered Triple X. That pass earned Gee an additional seven points and unofficially put him six points ahead of Hoiness for second place in the standings. It was also Gee's second runner-up finish in as many nights, also finishing right behind winner Joe Ramaker on Friday.

Perry, out of Billings, settled for a solid third place finish aboard his father Chuck Perry's No. 28 Santos & Sons-powered Maxim. Perry, who won his first career sprint car main event June 6th at Electric City Speedway, moved into eighth place in the point standings to close out the season.