Joey Doiron Dominates in Caution-Free St. Patrick's Day 150 at Hickory

Joey Doiron blistered the competition on Friday night at Hickory Motor Speedway, taking a convincing victory in a caution-free St. Patrick's Day 150 for the PASS Super Late Models.

WATCH LIVE: EASTER BUNNY 150 AT HICKORY

Doiron took the lead on lap 32 from Spencer Davis and never looked back, stretching out a lead of more than three seconds in the first-caution-free race in PASS Super Late Model history at Hickory.

"We could have used a yellow at the beginning," said Doiron in victory lane. "But with how our car was, I was fine with it going green-to-checkered.

It was a flawless Friday evening for Doiron, but they hardly work out that way historically for the Berwick, Maine driver. Before Friday's win, his only top-10 PASS finish at Hickory was a sixth-place run in the 2023 St. Patrick's Day 150.

"We've never had much luck here," said Doiron. "We've crashed a lot. It feels good, we brought our best car here. We felt like if we were going to come down again, we needed to give it our best chance. Obviously, it was pretty good."

While the Easter Bunny Weekend doubleheader does not count for PASS points, it's still a great start to the season for Doiron. Coming off a year where he won three PASS races, including the inaugural Celebration of America 300 and the PASS 400 at Oxford Plains Speedway, Doiron hopes to carry that momentum into 2025.

"Last year was pretty incredible. It would be pretty hard to top that, but we're starting off on the right foot."

Garrett Hall scored the runner-up finish in the 150-lap feature. While the handling of his car was starting to go away after 150 green-flag laps, he was content with the second-place effort.

"We had a lot of fun out there," said Hall. "The car ran good. It was just a little bit free, but you can't complain. Maybe I should have run it a little bit harder at the beginning, but overall, I'm happy with a second-place finish. We'll move on and try to work on it a little bit tomorrow.

"It's one of those things where, at the beginning of the race, we wanted to maintain fourth or fifth place, just ride and maybe there would have been a caution. I don't know if we would have had anything for Joey, but it definitely would have been fun to try."

In the closing laps, Caden Kvapil passed Davis for third place in the final running order. Kvapil hoped for a caution or two to gain on the leaders, but is optimistic going into Saturday's Easter Bunny 150.

"It was a little difficult there, 150 straight," said Kvapil. "I wish we had a yellow or two there to break it up a little bit, give us a little more of a chance. I thought we had the car to beat with how we did in practice. It just got a little too free. Going 150 straight, that's going to happen. We'll just have to regroup and tighten up the car a little bit."

Davis finished fourth after leading the first 31 laps of the race, with Brandon Barker rounding out the top five.

The PASS Super Late Models will be back in action on Saturday, March 15 for the Easter Bunny 150 at Hickory. Qualifying begins at 4 p.m. ET, with feature racing at 5 p.m. ET.

-Photo credit: Will Bellamy