BRL NSCT S1 R6 Recap

04 November 2022
Bootleg Racing League | Season 1 | Round 6
National Sprint Car Trail | North Wilkesboro Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

James Tiernan took his third checkered flag in a row tonight, this week in his asphalt sprint, in the Bootleg Racing League National Sprint Car Trail at North Wilkesboro Speedway ahead of Justin Morton and Aiden Young. “I was trying to kind of haul, make sure I got in front of [Morton] early”, Tiernan shared with us at the end of his run, “Making sure you have tires underneath you when you’re trying to make those passes is super important in like the asphalt sprint cars and the silver crowns.”

Todd Liston started off the night taking the green flag for the 7-car field in the only heat with Joe Segalla to his outside. Liston had a great jump off the start pulling away to almost 0.5 as the drivers quickly single filed out. Liston continued to stretch out his lead to over 1 second as the laps quickly counted down taking the checkered flag in the end. Soon thereafter Justin Morton lined up on the pole to lead the field around to take the green flag in the 50-lap feature event.

James Tiernan stayed with Morton off the start and the two drivers quickly put almost 1.5 seconds between the lead battle and Jason Menda back in 3rd. Aiden Young was aggressively pushing up through the field up to 5th with 10 laps completed as Bruce Jones slowly closed the gap to Menda for 3rd. Tiernan dove to the inside of Morton to claim the lead for himself on lap 12 completing the move, but Morton stayed tight on Tiernan’s rear bumper keeping the pressure high going forward. Young cleared around Jones and reached the rear of Menda diving low to take away 3rd. Going into the 2nd half of the night, Menda got loose trying to get everything he could out of the car and came together with Jones spinning both drivers into the outside wall.

The drivers restacked to once again take the green flag after that incident with Tiernan still in control of the field. Off the jump, Tiernan and Morton again pulled away from the field. Young may have sacrificed too much getting up into 3rd as he was not able to maintain the same pace as the leaders and started fall back. John Wilson caught Segalla and made a move for 4th place but couldn’t complete it when he got loose coming out of the corner and chose to back out of it for the moment to save the car.

Wilson closed back in on Segalla after recovering and started pressuring him again with 16 laps remaining. Tiernan had built up over 0.5 seconds between himself and Morton and Young had fallen back to over 1.6 seconds. Wilson, Segalla, Jones, and Rory Collins were all tightly paced together and fighting over 4th place with Wilson holding the position going into the final 10 laps. Segalla continued to battle back from the outside and reclaimed 4th when Wilson got loose in turns three and four sliding down into the pit wall bringing out a late race caution.

Tiernan again pulled away as the green came back out. This time around, Morton was not able to stay with the leader and fell back several car lengths going into the final laps. Coming out of the last corner, James Tiernan took the checkered flag for the third week in a row with Justin Morton, Aiden Young, Joe Segalla, and Bruce Jones rounding out the top 5 finishers tonight at North Wilkesboro Speedway.

Aiden Young holds onto the lead in the overall point standings with 387 points. Justin Morton jumped sits in 2nd with 373 points. Bruce Jones holds onto 3rd with 357 points. Rory Collins moved up into 4th with 304 points and Stephen Spies rounds out the top 5 drivers with 299 points. Justin Morton holds onto the Asphalt Sprint points lead with 149 points ahead of Aiden Young and Bruce Jones. The drivers of the Bootleg Racing League head over to Fairbury Speedway on November 11th in the midgets with all of the intense action brought to you live at 10:30PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!