BRL NSCT S1 R5 Recap

28 October 2022
Bootleg Racing League | Season 1 | Round 5
National Sprint Car Trail | Gateway Motorsports Park
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

James Tiernan took his silver crown all the way to Victory Lane tonight in the Bootleg Racing League National Sprint Car Trail at Gateway Motorsports Park ahead of Justin Morton and Aiden Young. “I tried my best not to look in my rear view mirror much of that race it was just a matter of keeping my head down running my line and making sure I was where I needed to be”, Tiernan shared with us as the night wound down, “It was just a matter of me running my line and making sure I didn’t make any mistakes to kind of let him get a nose in where I didn’t want him.”

James Tiernan took the pole in qualifying with a quick 4-lap average time of 31.259 with Justin Morton only 0.012 seconds behind him in 2nd. As the green flag came out, Tiernan jumped out to a strong lead with Morton slotting in behind him. Bruce Jones secured 3rd as a battle over 5th involving Rory Collins, Jason Menda, and Aiden Young started to heat up. Menda was running the high line as Collins tried to close the door ahead of Young. Young had a good run going along the inside and couldn’t checkup in time to avoid contact. Young was knocking into the infield as Collins was sent up the track into Menda, both drivers make hard contact with the outside wall going into the 2nd lap of the night and bringing out an early caution.

As racing resumed, Jones tried to get to the inside of Morton but wasn’t able to match Morton’s pace along the outside. Young was looking to the inside of Todd Liston for 4th taking away the position going into lap 4. Morton closed the gap back up to Tiernan as the leaders pulled away from the rest of the field with over 1 second between them and Jones in 3rd. Young got the inside of Jones quickly moving up into 3rd but the gap to the leaders continued to stretch out.

Menda was still recovering from the earlier incident and had climbed back up to 6th close behind Liston looking to the inside several times. With 13 laps completed, both Liston and Menda got loose on corner exit forcing Menda down the track to avoid contact and giving him the opening he needed to move up into 5th as the drivers continued to run. Morton was still keeping the pressure high on Tiernan with only 0.1 seconds between the two with Morton looking to the inside but unable to complete the move.

Going into the 2nd half of the night, Tiernan started weaving his line down the straights in an attempt to break the draft for Morton behind him as the lead battle extended out to over 4 seconds ahead of Young. With the laps counting down, the field had become spread out around the track. The only active battles were for the lead between Tiernan and Morton and over 3rd place between Young and Jones with 20 laps remaining.

A late race caution came out with 11 laps to go when Joe Segalla got loose coming out of turn four with Collins behind him. Segalla wasn’t able to recover before making hard contact with the inside wall resulting in significant damage. The field restacked for the restart changing the dynamic of the race placing Young and Jones back with the leaders. Tiernan got another good jump off the restart. Morton cleared into 2nd ahead of Young while Menda got to the inside of Jones.

Jones went wide in the corner and made minor contact with the outside wall allowing Menda to secure the position with Liston in 5th. Tiernan and Morton again pulled away from the field as Menda started closing the gap to Young in 3rd. Coming out of the final corner, James Tiernan took the checkered ahead of Justin Morton with Aiden Young, Jason Menda, and Bruce Jones rounding out the top 5 tonight at Gateway Motorsports Park.

Aiden Young secured the lead in the overall point standings with 323 points. Justin Morton jumped up 2 spots into 2nd with 306 points. Bruce Jones holds onto 3rd with 299 points. Stephen Spies fell back to 4th with 253 points and Rory Collins rounds out the top 5 drivers with 249 points. Justin Morton holds onto the Silver Crown points lead with 148 points ahead of Aiden Young and Bruce Jones. The drivers of the Bootleg Racing League head over to North Wilkesboro Speedway on November 4th in the asphalt sprints with all of the intense action brought to you live at 10:30PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!