BRL DSS S12 R11 Recap

09 September 2022
Bootleg Racing League | Season 12 | Round 11
Dirt Street Stock Series | Knoxville Raceway
Photograph by: Billy Northcutt
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

William Hargreaves with Dirt Panda took his 5th win of the season and defended the title of season champion tonight in the Bootleg Racing League Dirt Street Stock Series at Knoxville Raceway ahead of J R Shepherd and Kevin Davis. “Yeah, that’s pretty cool, huh?”, Hargreaves joked around with us after taking the Season 12 championship, “It’s more than just winning championships or even just winning races here I like it in this league. They’re hard to come by.”

Billy Northcutt came into the final round of Season 12 with the fast lap in qualifying clocked at 22.692 ahead of his teammate, William Hargreaves, by 0.052. Brandyn Proudfoot struggled to find the speed early on and put down a time over 0.1 off the pole. Northcutt led every lap to take the first heat win of the night while Hargreaves and Proudfoot battled over the lead through the second heat with Hargreaves taking the checkered flag by 0.152 over Proudfoot at the line. Zachary Loomis finished out the heats taking the win ahead of Cody Shaw. Thomas Vickers and Jason Best claimed the wins in the consolation races leading into the main feature.

Northcutt and Hargreaves shared the front row as the 18-car field took the green flag at Knoxville for the 40-lap feature event. Both Dirt Panda drivers stayed side by side around the first lap while the field spread out three wide in several spots fighting for positions early. Hargreaves got a nose ahead of Northcutt as the two continued to battle over the lead with 5 laps behind them. Proudfoot was aggressively pushing to the front running tight behind Northcutt on the high side. Hargreaves was able to clear ahead of Northcutt on lap 12 for the first time of the night.

Zachary Loomis had gotten around Proudfoot for 3rd and was pressuring Northcutt for 2nd place while Proudfoot fell back further into the field being overtaken by Kevin Davis and Cody Shaw with significant damage to his front suspension after contact with the outside wall. As the drivers crossed the halfway point of the night, Northcutt closed back in on Hargreaves’ rear bumper and Proudfoot fell back as far as 11th place still trying to wrestle the damaged #22 General Tire machine around the track. The leaders pulled away from the rest of the field by over 1 second as the battle between the Dirt Panda drivers heated up.

J R Shepherd was leading the majority of the field from 3rd place with Davis looking to his inside but unable to make complete the move. With 9 laps remaining, Proudfoot was forced to come down pit road for repairs throwing out any chance of reclaiming the series championship. Hargreaves started to build a gap between himself and Northcutt going into the final 5 laps, but as the leaders were negotiating through lap traffic Northcutt made contact with Grady Wilson sending Northcutt around on track with 2 lap to go. Hargreaves took the green flag for a 2-lap shootout to the checkered flag. William Hargreaves had a great launch off the start and pulled away to take the win and the season championship with J R Shepherd, Kevin Daivs, Cody Shaw, and John Wilson rounding out the top 5 finishers tonight at Knoxville Raceway.

With tonight’s victory, William Hargreaves officially defended his championship title with 775 points against Brandyn Proudfoot’s 743 points and Billy Northcutt’s 729 points. J R Shepherd finished 4th in the point standings with 685 points with Jeffrey Hardin rounding out the top 5 this season with 557 points. Next week is the 2nd annual running of the BRL Dirt Shootout on September 16th with the drivers jumping into the Pro Late Models around I-55 Speedway to put on a show you won’t want to miss going live at 7:10PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!