BRL SLM S17 R2 Recap

02 Apr 2022
Bootleg Racing League | Season 17 | Round 2
Super Late Model Series | Hickory Motor Speedway

James Lowe took his first win of the season tonight in the Bootleg Racing League Super Late Model Series at Hickory Motor Speedway ahead of Mathew Thunhorst and Kenny Kibbey. “It feels great, but I’m worn out… These things are hard to win and whenever you can get one you gotta kind of enjoy it a little bit.”, Lowe told us after leading all 100 laps tonight, “These cars, it seems like if you can get out front you can stay out there unless you mess something up.”

Joe Segalla started the night off on the pole with James Lowe to his outside as the green flag came out. Lowe wasted no time dropping behind Segalla off the start and diving down low to take the inside line away going into the first turn and pulling ahead into the lead. Contact between Segalla and Austin Boelke soon thereafter shuffled the running order in the front letting Michael Goodman and Kenny Kibbey move up into 2nd and 3rd. Kibbey cleared Goodman and went to work closing the gap to Lowe.

Mathew Thunhorst cleared for 3rd place when Goodman found himself stuck on the outside line with a tightly packed group of cars running single file below him. Thunhorst and Kibbey battled side by side as the field had 20 laps completed with Thunhorst taking the position away with Justin Morton and Todd Liston catching the lead pack. Thunhorst started pressuring Lowe trying to force a mistake, but Lowe held the inside line running very close together lap after lap.

Going into the second half of the 100-lap event, Thunhorst stayed tight on Lowe’s rear bumper waiting for an opportunity to take advantage, but Lowe held his line not letting Thunhorst get beneath him. Kibbey stayed close behind ready to follow Thunhorst when the move was made for the lead. With 30 laps remaining, Liston cleared Morton for 4th place and started to close the half of a second gap to Kibbey as the leaders caught up to lap traffic for the first time of the evening.

Thunhorst became more aggressive giving Lowe a few light taps to his rear bumper with 20 laps to go. Lowe continued to run a consistent low line in the corners with the laps counting down and not giving Thunhorst a chance to get below him. Kibbey followed closely behind preventing Thunhorst from adjusting his entry for a better run off in the corners as it would open the inside line up enough for Kibbey to take advantage in the final laps. After an intense final few laps, Lowe took the checkered flag beating Thunhorst to the line by 0.139.

James Lowe jumped to the top of the point standings with tonight’s win with a total of 76 points. Kenny Kibbey follows behind by only 1 point and Mathew Thunhorst 3 points off the lead. Michael Goodman sits in 4th place with 71 points and Justin Morton rounds out the top 5 with 65 points. The Bootleg Racing League now heads out to Stafford Motor Speedway for the third round of the season on April 9th and you can catch all of the action broadcast live at 8:55PM EDT only on the Virtual Grip Network!