By Ken de la Bastide

(June 23, 2013) - In his first start of the 2013 Anderson’s Josh Poore dominated the biggest race of the year for the CRA Street Stock Division at Anderson Speedway on Saturday.

Poore started on the outside of the front row alongside quick qualifier Jeff Lane. He chased Lane for the first 22 laps and then grabbed the lead with an outside pass on the front straight.

He held off Lane during the course of nine restarts to take home the $3,000 first place money. Poore led 173 of the 200 laps. A year ago Poore led all 200 laps to win event.

With Poore in control of the point there was tight racing behind him for second place between Lane, Josh Myers, Bret Miles Jr. and Dustin Burge.

Lane pressed Poore on the final restart with 11 laps remaining, but was never able to get alongside on the outside. Poore won by .574-seconds.

Myers finished third with Miles and Burge, who started 15th in the field, rounding out the top five.

“I just held my line,” Poore said of his fifth career CRA win at Anderson Speedway. “He (Lane) is one of the best drivers out here. If he was going to pass me, it was going to have to be on the outside.”

Poore said he got the lead in lapped traffic when Lane got trapped behind a slower car in the low groove.

“The cautions helped,” he said. “I didn’t want to have to race through a lot of traffic. When I closed on the pack, I was hoping for a caution.”

Lane said his team missed the set-up, while Poore’s team made the right call.

“On the last restart I drove it into turn one more than I had been,” he said. “I knew it was then or never. He (Poore) didn’t give up the low line, which is what we would all do.”

Myers said it simply that Poore was cruising and didn’t have to run as hard as he could.

There were 21 of the 32 starters still running at the finish with 14 cars running on the lead lap.

The race was slowed only eight times for a total of 46 laps.

Jason Atkinson, who was the most recent visit of the series to Anderson Speedway, was running fourth at the halfway break. But on lap 101 his car slowed dramatically and he pulled into the infield area.

A good run for Tyler Marsh all went away on lap 159 when he spun in turn two while running fourth. He spun a second time on lap 184 and finished 13th.