The Callaway Investments Sportsman Street Stock Series wrapped up their Summer Season with a race at New Smyrna before heading into the season finale at South Boston with Ty Spearman leading Tim Bills in points.
In the Week 9 race at New Smryna, Bills picked up his first pole of the season, but would be dropped back with an 8-car invert. That invert brought Joe Schaffer up to the front of the field.
Schaffer led the first 19 laps of the event, but the invert had also brought Ty Majeski up to 3rd, and on lap 20 Majeski took over out front by powering by on the outside. Majeski would go on to lead the final 56 laps of the race to pick up his 2nd win of the season and the 72nd of his SARA career, which also secured him the Triple Crown championship with a combined total of 9 points in the three triple crown races.
Tim Bills closed the gap in the points standings leaving New Smryna after a 3rd place finish with Spearman finishing in 5th, down to just 2 points entering South Boston.
When things got underway at SoBo, one car missing was Spearman as some prior work commitments prevented him from making the final race of the season, leaving Bills in control to pick up the Street Stock championship.
Bills began the night doing exactly what he needed to when he picked up the pole position for his 14th career SARA pole. The invert would bring Kevin J Myers to the front of the field while Bills was dropped back to 7th.
The 125-lap feature event got started with a 41-lap green flag run, allowing Myers to get the jump out at the front of the field. He would pull out to a 2.5 second gap out front by lap 15 as Bills would move up into 2nd. That gap would begin to shrink during the run however as Bills would close it down to just over one second before that first caution flew on lap 41.
The top two would remain the same through another short run up until the lap 58 caution. At this time, Bills would give up 2nd to head to pit road to get new tires, while Myers would remain on track to keep the lead. The race would restart on lap 64 with Myers still out front, but he would begin to feel the pressure on lap 73 from Matt Rolfe who had taken tires on the first caution of the night.
Rolfe would duck down to the inside of Myers for the race lead, and the two would set out on a 30-lap side-by-side battle for the lead. The outside groove started to come in nicely, allowing Myers to hold the lead from the high side, forcing Rolfe to the bottom where he couldn’t get the run he needed to take the lead. Rolfe would gain on entry, but Myers would use the momentum on the high side to hang on out front. While they battled it stacked up the top 8 cars behind them as they would run two-by-two leading up to lap 100. Just after lap 100, Rolfe finally gained a nose out in front when some contact behind the leaders between Bills and Scott Dunlap would cause Dunlap to spin around out of the 4th spot to bring out a caution.
Rolfe would lead the field back to the green flag with Myers still on his outside as they would continue their battle after the restart. However as the laps began to wind down, cars began to get impatient and some slight contact from behind caused Rolfe’s loose car to break free and he would spin out of the lead on lap 112, handing the lead back to Myers out front.
Just a couple laps later however, Bills had finally found some room to run without anyone in front of him running side-by-side and Bills would challenge Myers for the lead and took over on lap 114 just prior to the race’s final caution. This would set up a 1-lap shootout to the finish, but Bills would get the jump he needed and would come back around to pick up the checkered flag for his 2nd win in as many races at SoBo that week, and his 3rd win of the Street Stock season.
Behind the winner, Joe Schaffer would come around to finish 2nd, while Myers would end up finishing 3rd after hanging on with old tires to finish on the podium. Jason Covington had a strong run to finish in 4th, with Ian Layne rounding out the top five with a 5th place run.
After picking up the victory on the night, Tim Bills would pick up enough points to take over the points lead to pick up his first career SARA championship in the Callaway Investments Sportsman Street Stock Series. Bills’ championship season consisted of 11 starts, 2 poles, 3 wins, 6 top fives, 8 top tens, and 132 laps led.
Also earning some hardware at the end of the night was Justin Sullivan who picked up the Rookie of the Season honors, scoring 67 out of a possible 80 rookie points. Bills would earn another title on the night as he would earn enough Dash points to be the Qualifying Dash champion as well.
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