On Thursday night, 31 RB Performance Super Late Model drivers ventured south to Lakeland, FL to attempt to qualify for the 100 lap feature event at USA Speedway.
The night started off with time trials and it was Derek Robinson who shot to the top of the speed charts, which was his first pole since back in April of 2014. Robinson led the top 8 cars from time trials into the Qualifying Dash, where he got a quick jump on the field and picked up the Dash win for some extra bonus points. But with the Dash win, Robinson was inverted back to 8th for the feature, while Joe Schaffer was inverted to the top spot.
Schaffer brought the field to the green flag, and while the race was a little rough in the early going as the field struggled to get into a groove, Schaffer was holding strong out front. Once the field finally settled in just before half way, they were able to get in two long green flag runs to the finish, which allowed Schaffer to really show his strength at the front of the field. During the last run, Schaffer extended his lead out to over 3-seconds as he crossed the line to pick up the win, leading all 100 laps of the race en route to his first career SARA victory.
Behind Schaffer, Trent Brown picked up a 2nd place finish. Brown started back in the 20th position, gaining the most positions on the night to pick up his best career SARA finish. David Krikorian finished on the podium in 3rd after running inside the top five all race long. Richard Bruce recovered from an incident within the first 20 laps of the race to take 4th, while Jim Caudill rounded out the top five, despite running inside the top 3 until the final laps.
Just outside the top five, Tim Bills worked his way back up into a 6th place finish once the field settled down with Dale Owen finishing in 7th after both drivers were collected in early race incidents. Robinson stayed steady all night after starting in 8th after the Dash invert, and he would finish in the same position at the end of the night. Peter Fisher and Ian Layne rounded out the top ten, with both drivers having to work their way up from the back of the pack throughout the race.
With the victory, Joe Schaffer takes over the top spot in the standings and holds a 19 point advantage over 2nd place.