BRL DSLM S1 R1 Recap

06 January 2023
Bootleg Racing League | Season 1 | Round 1
Dirt Super Late Model Series | Lernerville Speedway

William Hargreaves with Dirt Panda Racing took the checkered flag tonight with the Bootleg Racing League Dirt Super Late Model Series at Lernerville Speedway ahead of Aiden Young and Stephen Spies. “I’m not very good in these… I don’t run them much and so I got everything I can do just to hang on to this thing”, Hargreaves commented as the night came to a close, “That was a very unfortunate break for Vickers tonight, that was definitely his race to win.”

Thomas Vickers with Richard Murtaugh Racing had the fast 4-lap average set at 14.293 at the top of the timing and scoring boards as qualifying came to a close and the drivers started lining up for the heat events. Vickers claimed the checkered flag in the first heat and secured the pole for the upcoming feature with John Heyn and William Hargreaves winning their respective heats. Billy Northcutt and Matt Hoose won the following consolation races leading up to the 30-lap feature event.

Vickers quickly cleared ahead of Heyn off the green flag with Hargreaves moving up into 2nd before Heyn could get settled into 3rd ahead of Stephen Spies. Hargreaves closed in on the rear bumper of Vickers keeping the pressure up in the early stages of the night. Heyn was forced wide and went off the track through turns three and four recovering back in 12th. Vickers continued to hold of Hargreaves with Spies under pressure from Aiden Young battling for 3rd.

Going into the 2nd half of the race, Spies made a move for 2nd before going off the backstretch dropping back behind Young in 4th. Vickers was starting to build up a strong gap ahead of Hargreaves of over 2.8 seconds while the leaders were aggressively negotiating through dense lap traffic as the caution came out with 10 laps remaining. In a shocking upset, contact between lap drivers resulted in Jason Menda being pushed up the track and making hard contact with Vickers coming around his outside. Vickers was sent off the back of turn one making hard contact with the outside wall giving the lead over to Hargreaves.

In the final laps, Hargreaves maintained a 0.5 second gap on Young. Coming out of the final corner, Young closed the gap to the lead but not enough to make an attempt for the lead as William Hargreaves took the checkered flag ahead of Aiden Young with Stephen Spies, Matt Durbin, and Jeff Sharp rounding out the top 5 tonight at Lernerville Speedway.

William Hargreaves starts the new season off in the lead with 82 points. Aiden Young, Stephen Spies, Matt Durbin, and Jeff Sharp round of the top 5 in the point standings after the first round. The Bootleg Racing League next heads to Lucas Oil Speedway on January 13th with all of the dirt slinging action brought to you live at 8:40PM ET only on the Virtual Grip Network!