On Monday night, the NEO Racing News Legends league made the trip to one of the largest oval tracks on it’s schedule, at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park for 40 laps. The race would be the 7th oval race of the season and the 11th overall. In qualifying, it was Bill Martin that took the top time out of the 20 car field, being the only car to break the 22-second mark with a lap of 21.961 seconds.
Martin led the field to the green but a quick yellow would come out slowing the field back down to pace speed. Once they got back to green on a lap 6 restart, Martin got the jump back out to the lead and quickly began to pull away as he extended his lead to over 1-second within just 2 laps over Cody Kelley in 2nd. Behind them, Huston Hamer ran in the 3rd spot with Ryan Borges and Parker Traves right there in the mix, but the next caution would fly on lap 11 as Hamer would find himself facing the wrong way to bring out the yellow.
On the lap 16 restart, Martin pulled away once again as everyone behind him was still trying to sort things out. Back inside the top 10, Derek Robinson had moved up some positions until lap 18 where his car would get loose coming out of turn 2 and on the backstretch and he would go around into the wall, and a couple other cars would get collected as well, which brought out the final caution of the race, setting up the field for a 17-lap run to the finish.
Once again Martin grabbed a quick lead on the restart and Traves was quick to move up into the 2nd spot, but Martin was already pulling away by grabbing a 1-second lead just laps into the run again. Matt Rolfe moved up to 3rd with points leader Travis Warling moving into the top 5 as well, while Kelley fell back to the 5th spot. A few laps later, Rolfe would get shuffled back outside the top 5 as the guys behind him moved up and Dale Owen moved up into 5th. Martin continued to pull away while there were two separate battles within the top 5. Warling kept the pressure on Traves for the 2nd spot with Kelley right there as well. Meanwhile Owen was holding off Rolfe and Borges for the 5th spot.
As the laps wound down, the result was never in question as Martin pulled out to a 4-second lead, and brought the field around for the checkered flag. Martin would dominate by leading all 40 laps to pick up the win, his 6th career SARA win. Travis held onto 2nd with Warling and Kelley right behind him in the 3rd and 4th spots, while Owen was able to hold off the others to stay in the top 5.
1. Bill Martin
2. Parker Traves
3. Travis Warling
4. Cody Kelley
5. Dale Owen
6. Matt Rolfe
7. Ryan Borges
8. Huston Hamer
9. Clay Snider
10. Todd Cousins
11. Derek Robinson
12. Brandon Wilkinson
13. Ken Belanger
14. Patrick Hahe
15. Willy Howells
16. Stan Bragg
17. Jacob Beauchesne
18. Bill Prisco
19. James Linkiewicz
20. Mike Belanger
Next time out the Legends will run a double header event at Concord and the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
With the 3rd place finish, Travis Warling extends his points lead out to 51 points heading into the 12th and 13th races of the season. For full results and points, click HERE.