Column: Perrego Scored A Breakthrough Super DIRTcar Series Win At Big Diamond; Now Going One Race At-A-Time
News Director 
Column By: MICHELINA FRISS / DIRTCAR – MINERSVILLE, PA – After ending 2022 as the Super DIRTcar Series Rookie of the Year, Anthony Perrego had two goals in mind for his sophomore season – win a Series race and earn a podium spot in points.
However, the first handful of races in the championship season left him looking at those goals from the bottom of a hole. Entering the Series race at Big Diamond Speedway, he was 10th in points with engine gremlins keeping him out of the top 10 in three of the first five races.
Then, in one of the most exciting duels of the year, Perrego finally saw a race go his way.
The Walden, NY driver fended off nine-time and defending Series champion Matt Sheppard lap after lap, corner after corner, for the final 18 laps at Big Diamond Speedway to score his first points-paying Super DIRTcar Series win – adding to the two non-points Series wins he picked up in 2020.
“Hopefully, we can keep things rolling here,” Perrego said. “With the points, we’ve dug ourselves a pretty big hole. Now, going into these races you’re gambling a little bit more to try to win a race instead of looking at a points victory. If we can crawl ourselves out of a hole and be on the podium at the end of the year, that would be great. But I think right now, we’re going race by race and focusing on winning those races.”
The 29-year-old contributes the breakthrough win to getting more laps in the Four Star Racing car throughout the year, including running weekly at his home track, Orange County Fair Speedway.
So far, this year he’s scored one win at the track and leads the Big Block Modified track championship by four points over Sheppard.
“We’ve been really good at our home track,” Perrego said. “We learned some things there that applied to other tracks. We’ve been racing with Vinny [Salerno’s] car a little bit more than last year. We’re hitting some different races that we didn’t hit. When you race more, things seem to gel better.”
