On Monday night, the NEO Racing News SK Shoout Series made the trip to Lakeland, Florida for a 100-lap event at the USA International Speedway. 31 drivers would bring their ground-pounding SK Modifieds out to the track for the 2nd race of the Summer Season.
When time trials got underway, it was Tim Bills who posted his 2nd straight fast time in the division, and he would lead the top 8 cars into the Qualifying Dash. Bills’ fast qualifying translated well over to the Dash as he went on to lead all 8 laps to pick up the win. He would be inverted to the 8th spot to start the feature event, which some bad luck for Stan Bragg saw him get inverted back to the front in the 1st starting spot.
Bragg led the field to the green flag, but a number of early cautions slowed the pace of the race down quite a bit. During the early cautions, Bragg would lead the first 45 laps of the race, but would head down pit road to retire from the event early. This handed the lead over to last week’s winner, Cody Kelley, who would go on to lead every lap from there on. Kelley went on to pick up the victory, which was his 2nd straight in the division.
Behind Kelley, Bills worked his way back towards the front to finish in the 2nd spot. Ty Spearman started deep in the field after not posting a qualifying time, but slowly managed his way through the field to pick up a 3rd place finish. Matt Rolfe took the 4th spot after running inside the top ten all night long, and Ryan Borges rounded out the top five after running in the 2nd spot for a number of laps through the mid point of the race.
Just outside the top five, Dale Owen worked his way up to a 6th place finish after starting just outside the top ten. Ron Hagolin ran right around the 10th spot all night before picking up 7th. Former legends standout, Travis Warling earned himself an 8th place finish after an early incident dropped him back in the field. Cameron Hobbs and Patrick Hahe also finished inside the top ten coming up through the field from the 18th and 20th starting spots, respectively. Luke Zike was the big mover on the night, starting from the 27th position to climb up into a 14th place finish.
But it was all Cody Kelley over the final 55 laps to pick up the win, which was his 21st career victory. After winning the first two SK Modified races in a row, Kelley will be forced to start at the rear of the week 3 event at Phoenix.