On Tuesday night, the Sportsman Street Stock Series kicked off their season with a 75 lap opening night event. 19 drivers brought their Street Stocks out for the first race of the season, and it was Casey Kelley who set the fast time in qualifying to grab his 2nd career pole.
Kelley led the field to the green flag, and came around to lead the first lap. But it was David Krikorian who quickly got by him and grabbed the lead on lap number 2. From there on out, it appeared as Krikorian had things in control as he led a majority of the race, but Kelley was following closely behind. As the laps winded down, Kelley made his move on lap 67 with just 9 laps to go, and he would get by Krikorian to retake the lead. Kelley would lead the final 9 laps, and extended his lead out to a half-second as he crossed under the checkered flag to pick up the victory. The win for Kelley was his 2nd career SARA victory.
Krikorian held on to finish 2nd after leading most of the race. Behind the top two, there was quite the battle all race long as Austin Yarbrough, Joe Schaffer Jr., and Matt Rolfe each took turns running in the 3rd spot and swapping positions all race long. As their tires began to wear off, Yarbrough worked his way back to a 3rd place finish, followed by Schaffer and Rolfe who rounded out the top five.
Russell Berry had a strong run going early before a spin moved him back in the pack, but he would work his way back through the field to recover for a 6th place finish, followed by Darren Daves in 7th. Ian Layne and Billy Roberts both gained the most positions on the night, each moving up 5 spots from where they started to finish 8th and 9th respectively, while Scott Dunlap recovered from an early race incident to finish in the 10th spot.
Next time out, the Sportsman Street Stock Series will visit the Lucas Oil Raceway for another 75 lap event