MONROE — Still perfect.
Gary Lewis entered Saturday night’s Evergreen State Fair 150 at Evergreen Speedway having won all four races he had started this season.
Lewis nosed ahead of Jason Fraser heading into turn 1 on a lap-128 restart, then pulled clear along the backstretch and wasn’t challenged again en route to his fifth straight victory.
“This is awesome to come back here and race against the best,” Lewis said from victory stage. “I’ve got to give it to my team, we had some trouble tonight and they got it fixed.”
Fraser took the lead at the initial green flag, jumping to the front from his outside second-row starting position. He stayed in front of the field until Lewis passed him on lap 128.
“Too loose, just too loose … at the break we were afraid to change it we were so good,” Fraser said of his car on the final restart. “If I’d had the car from the first half of the race, (Lewis) never would have caught me.”
Fraser finished second, Brad Stanwood was third and Darin Stordahl was fourth.
The American Speed Association Aero Exhaust Northwest Tour presented by ECHO Outdoor Power Equipment event was one of four races at Evergreen Speedway on Saturday, part of the annual Washington 500.
Lewis had to change his car’s rear end after practice, and although he was the last on the track for qualifying he was second fastest after Fraser. He started on the second row inside of Fraser after the invert.
The race featured a competition yellow at lap 100 — the lap picked to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the race’s sponsor, the Evergreen State Fair.
During the competition yellow, Fraser found out his right front tire was going down. He received permission from ASA to change the tire, but made no other changes to the set-up.
There were three cautions after that, with Fraser successfully holding off Lewis on the restart of the first two.
On the third and final restart of the race, on lap 128, Lewis pulled to the outside heading into turn 1 and cleared Fraser for the lead on the backstretch.
There were a total of nine caution periods during the race, and just nine of the 23 cars that started were still running at the end.
Lewis’ most recent victory before Saturday was on July 20 in Kalispell, Mont., where he become the first driver to record back-to-back wins in the Montana 200.
Montana was also the scene of his first victory this season, in May at the Big Sky 150 Cory Wolfe Challenge at Mission Valley Speedway in Pablo.
In between those races, Lewis recorded a pair of wins in June. First at the inaugural BlueWater Wireless Road Course Challenge at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Wash., on June 7, and two weeks later at the Washington 125 at Wenatchee Valley’s Super Oval.
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