BUFFALO TWP— Tim Fuller was flying high, then he was beaten high.

Fuller had grabbed the lead from Billy Decker on the 58th lap of the Keystone Klassic 100-lap Super Dirt Series Modified feature Wednesday night at Lernerville Speedway and held it for 38 consecutive laps of green-flag racing while staying with the high groove.

A caution flag came out on the 90th lap and the race reached its 94th lap by the time the restart took place.

And Fuller's lead reached its end.

The driver of the No. 19 dropped to the low groove around turns 3 and 4 on the 95th lap, but Decker stayed up high, soared past Fuller off the fourth turn and cruised to victory.

"My brake pedal kept getting softer and softer,"Fuller said. "The car leaked fluid all over the wheel and I had no front brakes.

"I couldn't slow down coming around the turns. I had to drop down to stay on the track."

Fuller won the 100-lap Modified feature here last year. Decker, the Super Dirt Series points leader after five events, scored his second win on the circuit.

"That was a class move by Tim to go down low when he heard me buzzing around the top,"Decker said. "He gave me a clear passing lane to get by. That's good, clean racing."

Decker's win was his first at Lernerville.

"It feels good. The car was awesome," he said. "Races this long, you never know how the track's gonna change or how your car's gonna change. We held up pretty good."

Decker started the race from the 11th position but was in second place by the 39th lap.

Alan Johnson's No. 14Jstarted up front and he led for the first 50 laps, surviving three restarts in the first seven laps. There were only two more restarts — on the 52nd and 90th lap — the rest of the night.

Car trouble forced Johnson to the pits shortly after he lost his lead to Decker. Earlier in the night, Johnson won his heat race and set a fast-lap record for Modifieds at Lernerville of 16.180 seconds.

Kevin Bolland of New Brighton had the best finish among area drivers, claiming 17th place.

A violent crash on the seventh lap ended the night for three area drivers:Brian Swartzlander, Jim Weller IIIand Mark Flick.

Swartzlander was nudged into the wall off of Turn 4 by another car and got turned awkwardly before Weller IIIand Flick both hit his car at full speed.

"I couldn't tell who it was, but somebody bumped me while trying to get by,"Swartzlander said. "There just wasn't enough room for two cars there. I got smacked pretty good after that."

No one was injured in the mishap, but Flick's and Swartzlander's cars were damaged extensively.

Swartzlander was off to a solid start this season. Before last week, he had finished no lower than second in a feature and has yet to finish out of the top 10 in an area race.

"What's going to happen now, I don't know,"he said. "Our back end got torn in half and our front end is a mess. We'll have to get in the garage and check it out, but the car may be junk — and Mark's looked worse than mine.

"I'll probably run Gary's (Risch)car here Friday night, like usual. After that, who knows?"

Swartzlander had finished seventh in time trials earlier.

Dave Hess Jr. of Waterford won the Late Model feature, grabbing the lead from David Scott on the eighth lap and holding off Scott and Saxonburg's Alex Ferree in a tight 24th-lap restart.

The win marked the first at Lernerville for Hess in a Late Model. He has won here before in an E-Mod.

"This was a great race and I didn't know where the best line was,"Hess said. "I didn't know what to do. I just guessed right, I suppose.

"Two or three years ago, I was terrible here. I hated this place. I was intimidated by it. Now I'll probably come down here more often."

Notes:There were 57 cars in the pits, including 35 Modifieds. ... Hess has won five Late Model features this season, including three in a row in Erie. ... Brett Hearn is the all-time win leader on the Super Dirt Series tour with 88 victories. ... Fab Four racing returns to Lernerville Friday night.