BRL SLM S17 R6 Recap

30 Apr 2022
Bootleg Racing League | Season 17 | Round 6
Super Late Model Series | Southern National Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Justin Morton with Total Downforce Racing took his first win of the season becoming the 5th different winner in 6 races tonight in the Bootleg Racing League Super Late Model Series at Southern National Speedway ahead of Kenny Kibbey and Mathew Thunhorst. “Feel like I’ve been struggling at the end of these races to put something together and it finally clicked.”, Morton told us after leading 98 out of 100 laps tonight, “It takes a little bit more than skill to win one of these races. You gotta have a little luck on your side and I had that at the start of the race.”

Stephen Spies led the field to the green flag with Kenny Kibbey finding himself stuck to the outside and dropping back from 2nd place quickly before being able to tuck into line in 4th behind Mathew Thunhorst. Justin Morton took advantage moving up into 2nd place and soon took the lead away from Spies. 10 laps into the race, Thunhorst also cleared Spies with Kibbey close behind which forced Spies to stay on the outside line and fell back to 4th. Austin Boelke maneuvered himself into 5th staying close behind the leaders.

20 laps down and the top 3 were able to separate from the rest of the field by over one second pulling away from Spies as Boelke pressured for the position. The drivers were single filed out for the most part as the laps counted down and the field broke up into several smaller 3 to 5 car packs spread out around the track. Kibbey was able to get to the inside of Thunhorst, but Thunhorst fought back from the outside line and cleared holding onto 2nd behind Morton.

Thunhorst and Kibbey followed single file close behind Morton waiting for a mistake to take advantage of approaching the halfway point of the race while Boelke was able to clear around Spies now over 3 seconds behind the leader and falling further back lap after lap. Joe Segalla and Kurt Smith battled hard over 7th place in a pack to themselves as Joe Snyder ran over one second behind them. Positions 9th through 13th led by Todd Liston were more chaotic with the drivers trying to gain any positions they could before the end with 40 laps remaining.

With 30 laps to go, the leaders caught the rear of the field forcing Morton to negotiate through the lap traffic while maintaining speed as Thunhorst and Kibbey were both running close behind. Morton was held up periodically as the lap cars were reluctant to give up the inside line while having their own battles for position keeping the leaders single file while they cautiously maneuvered past. Thunhorst tried to pressure Morton, but the threat from Kibbey from behind kept him conservative as to not open himself up to lose the inside line.

With 15 laps remaining, the leaders had worked up to John Heyn running 9th in the field still carefully weaving through dense traffic single file. Morton was able to time his passes allowing him to build up a gap of over 0.4 ahead of Thunhorst as Kibbey got his bumper to the inside of Thunhorst going into the final 10 laps. Again, Thunhorst was able to clear Kibbey from the outside but with signs of tire wear showing allowing Kibbey to go for another attempt with 6 laps to go.

Kibbey cleared into 2nd and started to work on closing the gap to Morton. With not enough time left, Kibbey wasn’t able to get within reach of Morton as Morton crossed the line taking his first win of the season with Boelke and Spies rounding out the top 5 drivers of the night. “Just didn’t have enough time to catch up to [Morton], but even though if we could’ve caught him it was going to have to take a mistake or something by him to take the win.”, Kibbey commented after his hard charge toward the lead in the final moments.

Kenny Kibbey holds onto his lead in the point standings now with 230 points and 12 points ahead of Justin Morton. Austin Boelke sits in 3rd with 213 points and Mathew Thunhorst moved up into 4th place tonight still 39 points behind the leader. Joseph Segalla moved up into 5th place at 174 points rounding out the top 5 drivers as the Bootleg Racing League starts the second half of the season heading to The Bullring at Las Vegas on May 7th with all of the action broadcast live at 8:55PM ET only on the Virtual Grip Network!