On Wednesday night, the MRolfeDesigns Pro Late Models hit the track for the league’s only road course race of the season at Watkins Glen. For the first time, the division would run the Boot configuration, after having run the Cup configuration twice before.
The night got started with a familiar name at the top of the speed charts for a road course event, as David Krikorian set the fast lap at 1:48.118 seconds. The pole was the 13th of his SARA career.
For the 45-minute timed feature event, a standing start would get things going, and it was actually Windell Stratton that got the jump from 2nd on the start to quickly get ahead of Krikorian for the lead. But Krikorian wouldn’t give up that easy, as he stayed glued to the leader’s rear bumper for the entire first lap, before making his move into the lead heading back into turn one. From there, Krikorian extended his lead out to three seconds before making his pit stop just past half way, but regained the lead when things cycled back around. By the time he got out of the pits, the lead was up to nine seconds, and Krikorian would go on to dominate the race, eventually taking the win by over ten seconds. The win was no surprise, as Krikorian had also won the two previous races at the track in the Pro Late Models, and picked up the Watkins Glen trifecta for his 17th career SARA victory.
After giving up the lead on the second lap, Stratton would continue running in the 2nd spot, and despite losing time during the pit cycle, he would recover his position and went on to finish 2nd. Marc Gammack would battle right around the 5th position for the first half of the race, and was able to jump up a couple spots during the second half t0 round out the podium in 3rd. Anthony Celentano ran in the 3rd spot early on before slipping back a little during the mid portion of the race, but was able to climb back to finish 4th. Parker Traves started outside the top five and started picking his way to the front before taking over the lead during the pit cycle, but once he made his stop he would drop back, and would hang on to finish 5th.
Just outside the top five, Darek Gress would finish in the 6th spot, having a similar race to Traves as Gress started outside the top five before moving up throughout the field, then pitted late and dropped back to 6th. Davey Riendeau had a top five run going in the early laps, and again once things cycled out, but would end up facing the wrong direction after a slide in the late laps, and would drop to finish 7th. Matt Rolfe ran outside of the top ten before using an early pit strategy, and cycled out to move up into an 8th place finish. Wade Tschida and Darrell Hamlin battled with each other all race long, swapping positions a few times throughout the run before Tschida would get the advantage to finish 9th, with Hamlin taking 10th.
Next week the division will have an off-week, before returning after Thanksgiving for a return trip to Five Flags.