The NEO Racing News Legends League rolled into South Boston tonight for their Week 10 event, as they kicked off SoBo Week with an exciting finish. With all four divisions taking the track at SoBo this week, the Legends started it all off with 21 cars taking the green flag on the night, led by Ty Majeski on the pole with a time of 17.427 seconds, which was less than a tenth quicker than TJ Graves in 2nd.
Majeski got the early jump out front to lead the field around for the first lap, with Graves falling in behind him. Ryan Lutz, Dale Owen, and Clay Snider all also settled into the top 5 early on in the race even after battling though a couple of early restarts. One driver that was making moves back towards the front after falling back earlier in the race, was Stan Bragg. He fell back to 8th at the drop of the green but made his way up into the top 5 just past half way with a pass on the outside of Clay Snider, and was putting pressure on the first couple of drivers.
As Majeski led out front, TJ Graves would get into the wall after a restart and would fall back a couple of spots, moving Lutz into the second position. Graves would battle his way back up and was putting pressure on Lutz for 2nd before getting loose out of the corner and into the wall, ending his strong run. This moved Owen up into the 3rd spot after he had been running in the top 4 all race long, with Bragg and Matt Rolfe up into the top 5 behind him.
This lineup would set the front of the field for the final restart, with Majeski on the bottom and Lutz on the high side. As is standard with SARA, the leader controls the restarts, but Lutz would jump out on the outside. The field would get a little stacked up but Lutz would give the spot back to Majeski as they went into turn 1. The next time around, Lutz would get into the corner and made slight contact with Majeski, sliding him up the track and the two drivers would battle side by side with less than a handful of laps to go. On lap 46 as the were still running next to each other, Lutz would slide up the track coming out of the corner while Mejeski was trying to pinch him down, and the two drivers would get hooked together and into the outside wall. Both drivers would end up in the wall and turned around, ending both of their chances for the win as the caution would come out and the race would finish under yellow.
As the wreck happened out front, Owen and Bragg were battling side by side as well, but as the caution came out, Owen was scored in the lead, and he would lead the field around under caution for his 2nd win of the season. His first win came after the leaders wrecked at the NHMS mini-oval, and this race would be won in similar style as he was again in a position to take over the lead when the leaders got together. Bragg would end up finishing 2nd on the night, followed by Matt Rolfe in the 3rd spot. Mike Belanger had a quietly strong run as he was able to work up into 4th from his 11th place starting spot, and Snider finished in the 5th spot.
With his 5th place finish, Clay Snider still leads the points standings by 94 points heading into the final two weeks of the season. But with Rolfe having one less race than Snider, and drop weeks coming into effect starting next week, the points battle should be extremely close and will come down to the wire to determine the champion.
- Dale Owen
- Stan Bragg
- Matt Rolfe
- Mike Belanger
- Clay Snider
- Todd Cousins
- Mike Testa
- Jeff Hoggard
- Patrick Hahe
- Marcus Lambert
- Todd Sipe
- Ken Belanger
- Ty Majeski
- Mike Rhyno
- Matt Mitchell
- TJ Graves
- Ryan Lutz
- Shawn Dulin
- Zach Wroblewski
- Brian Tedeschi
- Bill Martin
Next week, the Legends visit IRP for the first time in their week 11 event.
For full results and standings, click HERE.