On Thursday night, the RB Performance Super Late Model Series traveled out west to the Irwindale Speedway for their 3rd race of the season, with a 125-lap feature event.
In Time Trials, it was Ty Majeski who laid down the fastest lap to pick up his 54th career sara pole with a lap of 17.520 seconds. 33 drivers attempted to qualify for the race but only the top 25 cars made the field based on times, with a couple provisionals handed out to make a grid of just 29 cars, sending four cars home early. The top ten cars from Time Trials advanced into the Qualifying Dash to run for some extra bonus points, and a 10-car invert dropped Majeski back in the pack while Kenny Smith was inverted to the front. Smith jumped out into the early lead and never really faced a challenge from behind as he went on to pick up the Dash win.
Smith led the field to the green flag in the feature event but this time he didn’t get the jump like he needed, as Matt Rolfe was able to hang on his outside. Smith led lap one, but by lap two Rolfe had worked around him and took over the lead out front. While Rolfe led, the rest of the field was sorting things out behind him and it was only a matter of time before Majeski and the other fast cars from Time Trials made their way back up to the front. Majeski was the first car to do so, and worked his way under Rolfe to take over the lead by lap 22.
The run continued until a caution flew on lap 37 which erased the .8 second lead that Majeski had built over Davey Riendeau who had moved up to 2nd. A couple more quick cautions set the field up for their next green flag run with a lap 62 restart. Majeski quickly gained the advantage and brought along his teammates, Bill Martin and Ty Spearman, into the top three, but Majeski began to pull away out front once again, building his lead out to over a second before the next caution on lap 87.
Another set of cautions over the next portion of the race once again set up the field with a restart and one final run to the finish. Majeski got a big jump into the lead on the restart and had a ten car length lead by the next time the field got to the stripe, and the lead continued to build. Majeski set sail out front over the final laps of the race and extended his lead out to over 1.2 seconds, and brought the field around to the checkered flag to take the dominating victory. The win for Majeski was his 52nd career SARA victory.
Once Martin moved up into the 2nd spot, he never gave it up and ran there for the rest of the race, and ended up with a 2nd place finish. David Krikorian battled inside the top five all race long and put himself in position on the final restart to move up into a 3rd place finish. Spearman ran inside the top three for most of the race but was caught in the inside lane late in the race and found his way back in line to finish 4th. Joe Schaffer took his time working his way up and battled late for a top five spot and moved up into a 5th place finish.
Just outside the top five, newcomer James Wenzel impressed by picking up a 6th place finish in his first career SARA start after working his way up from a 15th place starting spot. Chuck Sweeting needed a provisional to make the field but made the most of it as he cracked the top ten around halfway and moved up late to finish in 7th. Camaron Hamilton battled in the back half of the top ten for a majority of the race, briefly making an appearance in the top five but fell back from being on the inside lane on the late restart and ended up finishing 8th. Jason Williams made steady progress from his 17th starting spot to work his way up into a 9th place finish. Rolfe rounded out the top ten, recovering from an early spin and made his way back up to finish 10th.
With a 2nd place finish, David Krikorian takes over the points lead by a slim 4 points, and will lead the division into next week’s race at Concord.