BRL SLM S19 R10 Recap

03 December 2022
Bootleg Racing League | Season 19 | Round 10
Super Late Model Series | South Boston Speedway
Sim Racing Software: iRacing

Chris Davis with Team CDR claimed his first win in the series tonight with the Bootleg Racing League Super Late Model Series at South Boston Speedway ahead of Mathew Thunhorst and Austin Boelke. “The [racing] stewards put me up to the front [and] we decided to just let it play out. Also, I had a whole lot of luck.”, Davis shared with us as the exciting night came to a close before adding, “I really glad to be here tonight though.”

Justin Morton had the fast time going into the evening with a 4-lap average time of 14.775 in qualifying beating J R Shepherd’s time by 0.02 and started the 100-lap event in 10th place from the grid invert. Mike Holloway held the pole as the green flag came out with Mike LeMieux to his outside. Off the jump, Holloway pulled out front as Chris Davis, starting in 3rd, got under LeMieux to take away 2nd place. Davis quickly went after the lead getting a nose to the inside of Holloway taking control of the 24-car field with only 1 lap completed.

With 10 laps behind them, familiar names started pulling up into the top 10 with Austin Boelke leading the charge. Shepherd was up to 4th while Thunhorst was running in 10th behind Matt Hoose. Shepherd dove beneath Boelke to taking away 3rd as Boelke slotted back in line in 4th ahead of Donny Moore. LeMieux soon found himself shuffled back to 4th as Shepherd and Boelke cleared around him before setting their sights to Davis still in control of the field with 25 laps completed.

Shepherd saw an opportunity soon thereafter and went around to the outside of Davis taking away his momentum to taking the lead away going into lap 40. Thunhorst had climbed up to 6th with Kenny Kibbey directly behind him while Morton was in 10th patiently negotiating through the dense traffic. Going into the 2nd half of the night, Shepherd had built up a 0.5 second gap between himself and Davis before settling into a groove to put some laps behind him. Boelke was pressuring Davis for 2nd but wasn’t able to find an opening to take advantage of.

With the laps counting down, Shepherd had extended his lead out to almost 0.8 seconds ahead of Davis as a caution came out from issues with the field pushing through lap traffic on lap 68 completely blocking the front stretch forcing the leaders to come to a stop on the track as drivers were still blocking progress. Davis was given back the lead for the restart from confusion with the racing stewards regarding which drivers were actually involved in the incident with so many cars stopped on track and Shepherd was shuffled back to 5th as the green came back out.

With 20 laps remaining, Shepherd was noticeably upset with the stewards’ decision showing a lot of aggression as he weaved high and low battling with Kibbey for 4th. Davis was showing a strong pace in the final laps pulling away from Boelke and Thunhorst while Morton found himself blocked behind the battle between Shepherd and Kibbey. With 10 laps remaining, Davis had stretched the gap between himself and Boelke to over 0.7 who was holding back Thunhorst in 3rd. With a late race caution on lap 96 brought the race to an early end as Chris Davis took the checkered flag under caution flag conditions ahead of Mathew Thunhorst, Austin Boelke, J R Shepherd, and Kenny Kibbey tonight at South Boston Speedway.

J R Shepherd is the official season champion going into the final round next week with 463 points, 29 points ahead of Mathew Thunhorst with 434 points. Justin Morton with 433 points holds onto 3rd place only 1 point behind 2nd. Joseph Snyder and Donny Moore are now tied for 4th place with 322 points each. The final round of Season 19 of the Bootleg Racing League Super Late Model Series will be held at Five Flags Speedway on December 10th with all of the action broadcast live at 9PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!