From the drop of the green flag Sunday afternoon, to the waving of the checkered, there was little doubt in the minds of anyone at the famed World Championship Derby Complex who the best of the best was in the 600CC Formula III World Championship division.

No stranger to victory atop his No. 57 Mickey’s Racing Polaris, the same machine that led all 25 laps of last year’s World Championship race at Eagle River, Zach Dewald dominated once more.

If you count back the last two years of World Championship racing, Dewald has now led 49 of the 50 laps at Eagle River after winning his second, a back-to-back championship feat.

“Ah man, we pulled it off again,” said Dewald after reaching victory lane. “I can’t thank everyone who worked on this sled enough. We have an awesome group of sponsors and we don’t ever come to the race track alone. This one is for all of them.”

After Reed Klinger of Athens, Wisc., got the opening hole shot and led lap one, Dewald worked his way around the young Team PDF driver coming out of turn three and began to click away.

Seven laps into the final, as Dewald was working himself away from the rest of the field, Ryan McCaig got into the back of another sled, then caught a rut in between turns three and four, turning his sled onto the side and signaling the first red flag of the race.

Dewald wasn’t phased and was able to keep his No. 57 in the lead across the halfway point.

As Dewald continued to click away laps, behind him some events were unfolding as two-time World Champion Matt Goede was working his way through the field, moving himself into second place and making headway on the lead of Dewald.

With seven laps to go the second red flag of the race bottled things back up again as this time it was Andy Shoemaker who came off his machine on the entrance to the back straight away and race fans were in for what would be the most intense and telling couple of laps of the afternoon.

As drivers approached the line with Dewald on the inside and Goede to his right, in third place was Klinger, who showed he could challenge Dewald after doing so the majority of the opening session before fading back to third place.

Klinger’s hole shot, along with Goede’s, looked to be good. Dewald, though, stuck to his line while Klinger darted from third place to the inside. That forced Goede to take the high line going into the first set of corners and it was a three-way battle for the lead coming out of turn two onto the back stretch.

As Dewald picked up the throttle coming out of two, he powered to the lead and down hard into turn one.

It carried him a bit high however, and Goede quickly dug his carbide on his front right ski into the ice between turns one and two. With his right thumb on the throttle he grabbed the gas and powered through to the lead though only for a few moments.

“He slipped under me in one and two,” said Dewald. “I made a mistake and got up in the sh*t and I knew he was coming underneath me and it was just a matter of time. He was right there (the whole race).”

As Goede came into turn three, he thought he kept his sled low enough to avoid Dewald to his left. With a large portion of the north end of the speedway showing dirt, many drivers avoided the low line throughout the day, but Dewald wasn’t intimidated.

He slammed his No. 57 Polaris hard to the inside, and though he needed to bump up into the side of Goede to do it he killed the momentum of the No. 28 Ski-Doo of Geode and charged to the lead once more.

“I didn’t like doing that to Matt, but it’s the WC man and it had to get done,” said Dewald. “I had to go into the dirt to get inside of him there, but my equipment held up.”

Goede was visibly frustrated as he raised his hand almost in protest as he crossed the start finish line with just a half dozen laps left, but afterwards conceded saying he understands why Dewald did what he did.

“We were (in the lead) once and got blasted out of the way a little bit, but you know it’s for a World Championship so I don’t blame him,” said Goede of Dewald’s move to the inside. “The sled was about as good as you could have asked for, I don’t think it mattered.”

In speaking with track announcer Mark Resch afterwards, Goede was appreciative also of his team and sponsors, and acknowledged the difficulty of Eagle River.

“We were just bouncing off the ground,” said Goede. “We couldn’t keep the front end on the ground, then couldn’t keep the back end down. The track was brutal, but it was a fun race. We passed a lot of sleds out there even when we didn’t get a very good start a couple of times.”

Dewald’s win cements him in history as only a handful of drivers to repeat in the races storied 63-year history.

Also not to be forgotten in the field was four-time champion Blaine Stephenson who looked to have some speed early on, sitting in third place at one point before fading late. He eventually finished fourth, ahead of teammate Tanner Foss in fifth.

Sixth place went to Tyler Towne followed by Shoemaker, Luke Olson, Dakota Harris, Gunnar Sterne, Joey Burch and McCaig.