With the SARA 250 Presented by The Sunday Hauler just around the corner, the RB Performance Super Late Model Series headed up to Oxford last night as a prelude to the big event. With a lot of hype regarding the SARA 250 this weekend, high car counts were expected for last night’s league race and a record of 43 drivers would show up for a chance to qualify for the 150 lap event.
After practice, it was decided that the field would be split up into four heat races to give drivers a better chance to make the 30 car starting field. 7 cars from each heat would transfer, while the final two spots on the grid were awarded as provisionals to the drivers highest in points, meaning that 13 drivers would not qualify for the main event.
Heat #1 rolled off with Kenneth Lindsley in the top spot and he would have no trouble as he pulled out to nearly a 2 second lead to pick up the heat win, earning him the pole position for the feature event. Thomas Bennett and Jarrid Boiros started on the pole for heats #2 & #3 respectively, and each pulled out to a decent lead to pick up the wins in their heat races. Heat #4 would have the most action for the lead, as Ray Farlow was able to hold off Derek Holzhausen for the win in heat #4. After qualifying the top 7 cars from each heat, the final two provisional spots were awarded to Jeff Bye Jr and Brian Tedeschi who were the highest drivers in points that had not qualified at that point.
As the green flag flew to start the race, Lindsley jumped out to the lead, but the caution flag would fly shortly after and it would fly often throughout the night. The first caution of the night would come out on the backstretch of lap 1 which collected a number of cars and even sent two drivers on their roofs. The small little 3/8 mile track proved to be tough for a lot of the drivers throughout the whole night as they looked to try and just settle in but that would be easier said than done. Once the race got past the halfway mark, the action at the front of the field started to pick up.
Lindsley had been able to hang onto the lead through all of the restarts up to that point and looked to have the race in control early, but drivers such as Trey Jarrell, Jeff Bye Jr and others all began to work their way toward the front of the field, and onto the back bumper of the leader. Bye Jr ended up taking over the lead on lap 118, but Jarrell would make a move to the top spot with a bump and run on the leader on lap 125. Just a lap later, Bye Jr would return the favor making a similar bump and run move, but this would get Jarrell sideways dropping him back a number of spots as the caution flag flew.
On the final two restarts, Bye Jr would hold off Austin Craig and Lindsley, and he would go onto pick up his first checkered flag of the season from a 28th place provisional starting spot. This would be Jeff’s first SARA victory since he won at Thompson in the 2013 S3 Sportsman Street Stock Series season in which he won the championship. Lindsley would run up front all night long and hung onto the second position while Jarrell was able to work his way back up to third in the late laps. James Linkiewicz and Paul Boswell would both have an up-and-down kind of night but ended up salvaging top 5 finishes by the end of the race. With Jarrell’s 3rd place finish, he was able to hang onto the points lead 28 points over Bye Jr who moved up to second in points.
- Jeff Bye Jr.
- Kenneth Lindsley
- Trey Jarrell
- James Linkiewicz
- Paul Boswell
- Joshua Hart
- Trent Brown
- Austin Craig
- Anthony Celentano
- Brandon Wilkinson
- Derek Holzhausen
- Mike Testa
- Gary Belling
- Brian Tedeschi
- Jake Poulin
- Jacob Linkiewicz
- Clay Snider
- Ken Belanger
- Thomas Bennet
- Dante Curtis
- Jarrid Boiros
- Mike Belanger
- Todd Garren
- Bruce Perry
- Ray Farlow
- Stan Bragg Jr
- Britt Vanmeter
- Fred Moreau
- PJ Childs
- DNS – Kevin J Myers
DNQ – Michael Rennebu, Ronald Williams, Cody Leland, Eddie McCray, Joshua Kotten, Ronald Kirk, Dylan Schriner, Matt Rolfe, Ty Spearman, Mark Welch & Scott Dunlap
DQ – Ryan Borges, James Poleske
Next up for the Super Late Models is the SARA 250 on Sunday afternoon. The 250 will be broadcasted and we will post the broadcast link when it becomes available. And then next week the series will head to Martinsville, VA for a 125 lap feature event, as drivers will look to rebound and recover from a tough race last night.
For full results and standings, click HERE.