By: Ashley McCubbin

The final restart with 30 laps to go would decide the fate of Dutch Boy 150, and if it had gone a little differently, Drew Dollar could have wound up in victory lane.

Dollar restarted alongside Ty Gibbs on the front row, and ran side-by-side into turn one with him, however got sideways coming off the corner. The loss of momentum saw him fall behind the No. 18 Toyota, where he remained for the rest of the event.

Looking back at the deciding moment, Dollar was not sure immediately right after the race what he could have done differently.

“I ran it about wide open that whole first lap with him right at my door,” Dollar told NEWS FROM THE POINTS. “It’s tough when you have someone that tight as you can get pretty loose when someone decides to run you that tight, so wasn’t quite happy with that to be honest with you. So just really needed to clear him and get him in our air and then maybe we would’ve had something. So needed to clear him – so I don’t know.

“I’ll watch it over a couple times this week with my team and see what I could’ve done differently, but maybe I could’ve driven off deeper and maybe I needed to slow a slider on him; it’s tough.”

Dollar admitted afterwards he pushed really hard there, and perhaps may have burnt his stuff up a little bit, resulting in ultimately fading at the end. However, there was no regrets in feeling “that’s what he needed to do there” to have a chance to get out front.

“Just the way the car was, we fired off loose and then went a little tight so it was difficult there,” he commented. “Just really had to take advantage of the opportunities that I had and try to make up the most ground on the restarts. I felt like I did a good job of that; it’s just tough when you get laps into a run and can’t quite keep up.

“Like I said, though, overall we were good and I’m sure we’ll talk about it this week and come back even stronger.”

While Dollar unfortunately did not get the result he wanted, the runner-up continues a solid trend to start his season, which has featured three top-five’s and no finishes worse than seventh to rank second in the standings.

In comparison to last year, Dollar only had four top-five’s through the 20 events.

“Everything has been coming together pretty well,” Dollar commented. “I’ve had fast Camrys every time I show up at the track. I really like this team that I’m working with this year; I think we’re going to continue to compete for wins for the rest of this year. Everything is going pretty smooth; we’re really jelling well. It’s just going to be about getting a little bit better and me getting better so we can start clicking them off here, hopefully.”