BRL SLM S17 R4 Recap

16 Apr 2022
Bootleg Racing League | Season 17 | Round 4
Super Late Model Series | Five Flags Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Mathew Thunhorst claimed his first win of the season tonight with the Bootleg Racing League Super Late Model Series at Five Flags Speedway ahead of Kenny Kibbey and Justin Morton. “It was quite the eventful race”, Thunhorst commented about his hard charge to the front, “I was able to get up to like 7th or 8th pretty early before the cautions started coming and then I was just able to get to the top five and I kind of felt like once I got there the pieces kind of fell [in place].”

Donny Moore led the field to the green flag starting to start the evening off with Austin Boelke to his outside. Boelke and Moore battled side by side around the first several laps with Boelke being able to clear for the lead going into the 5th lap. Kenny Kibbey stayed close being Boelke trying to get around Moore in the same manner and was able to push Moore back to 3rd. Boelke and Kibbey then immediately started to pull away from the rest of the field.

A caution at the 20-lap mark stacked the field back together and put Justin Morton and James Lowe directly behind the leaders on the restart. Kibbey continued to chase Boelke around the track with Morton and Lowe close behind, but Thunhorst had also climbed up from 13th place through the field throughout the first 30 laps and joined the battle for the lead from 5th. Morton was able to get around Kibbey for 2nd place as Thunhorst moved up into 4th ahead of Lowe. Thunhorst wasted no time challenging for 3rd diving below Kibbey clearing for the position 40 laps into the event.

Going into the second half, Boelke continued to hold the lead. Thunhorst cleared Morton for 2nd place and started reeling Boelke in. Thunhorst’s move gave an opportunity to Kibbey who got around Morton before Morton could get back into line back in 4th ahead of Moore. Thunhorst made several attempts to pass but Boelke held a defensive line tight to the inside not leaving any room for Thunhorst to get beneath him. With 35 laps remaining, the top 3 of Boelke, Thunhorst, and Kibbey started to again pull away from the field.

Boelke slid up the track just enough to give Thunhorst an opening on lap 68 and Thunhorst took the lead away with Kibbey tight on his bumper to push Boelke back to 4th behind Morton. Boelke continued to fall back with 25 laps to go falling back to 6th ahead of Jeffrey Hardin. Kibbey stayed close to Thunhorst waiting for a mistake he could take advantage of, but Thunhorst was slowly starting to build a gap between them running 0.4 apart with 15 laps to go. Continuing to build that gap to over 1 second, Thunhorst took the win mostly uncontested tonight.

Kenny Kibbey leads in the points standings with 154 points, 4 points ahead of James Lowe after tonight’s win. Justin Morton holds onto 3rd with 140 points over Austin Boelke and Michael Goodman rounding out the top 5 drivers so far in the season. Mathew Thunhorst, last season’s champion, currently sits back in 7th place tied with Joe Segalla with 113 points. Now the Bootleg Racing League heads over to North Wilkesboro Speedway for the next round on April 23rd with all of the action broadcast live at 8:55PM EDT only on the Virtual Grip Network!