BRL LM S21 R10 Recap

11 March 2023
Bootleg Racing League | Season 21 | Round 10
Late Model Series | South Boston Speedway

J R Shepherd with Different Path Motorsports took another win tonight in the Bootleg Racing League Late Model Series at South Boston Speedway ahead of Kenny Kibbey and Matt Hoose. “Definitely a new car, completely different than the old limited late model”, Shepherd commented at the end of the night, “The gameplan from the beginning was just to try to run a decent pace and not abuse that right front.”

J R Shepherd continues his streak of qualifying at the top of the boards with a fast lap put down at 15.173 starting the night off in 10th with the Bootleg Racing League grid invert giving control of the field over to Bryan Dehn to take the green flag. Ruben Altice started alongside Dehn on the outside and was able to slot in behind the leader off the jump, but an opening lap caution took away his strong start as multiple drivers came together going into the first corner blocking the track.

Several drivers were caught up in the incident, but drivers such as Kenny Kibbey and Shepherd slipped through to take the green flag from 4th and 5th going into lap 8 with Dehn still in control of the field. As racing resumed, Altice wasn’t as lucky with Joseph Snyder getting a nose under him off the jump with Shepherd and Donny Moore both lining up to follow him through. Kibbey was able to get down behind Snyder knocking Altice further and further back until Altice was able to drop down in front of Todd Liston in 6th.

Matt Hoose was up to 11th from starting 23rd and was quietly moving up through the field with the first 20 laps completed. Kibbey struggled to get around Moore as Dehn, Snyder, and Shepherd started to pull away with the lead building over 1 second between themselves and Moore. The laps started to quickly count down as the drivers settled into their grooves and got more comfortable with the new Late Model Stock with the field starting to spread out around the track.

Shepherd cleared into 2nd place on lap 33 and set his sights to Dehn as Kibbey worked to slowly reel the leaders in. Dehn was negotiating through dense lap traffic with Shepherd pressuring him going into lap 40. Shepherd was aggressively looking under and was able to eventually get his nose to the inside and take the lead away on lap 43 with Snyder trying to take advantage and get 2nd place away. Kibbey had caught the battle for 2nd and patiently waiting for an opening before clearing around Dehn into 3rd.

Going into the 2nd half of the night, Shepherd was starting to walk away with the lead as Kibbey dove under Snyder for 2nd over 1 second behind the leader. Jeffery Hardin was one of the drivers caught up in the opening incident and was now making his way back up through the field up to 7th showing a strong pace. Shepherd continued to pull away from Kibbey lap after lap with lap traffic at all points around the track. Hardin continued his push to the front climbing up to 6th and pressuring Stephen Spies ahead.

With 20 laps remaining, Hardin was looking to the inside of Spies, but lap traffic forced him to stay single file. Their battle caught the back of Snyder and they both quickly made their way around moving Spies up into 4th going into the final laps. Hardin saw an opportunity on lap 95 and got his nose to the inside pulling ahead of Spies securing 4th. Going into the last 4 laps, contact between Altice and lap traffic resulted in 3rd, 4th, and 5th place getting collected on the front stretch bringing out the caution and ending Hardin’s great charge up through the field.

J R Shepherd had stretched his lead out to over 3 seconds before the caution came out and took the checkered flag under yellow flag conditions with Kenny Kibbey, Matt Hoose, Joseph Snyder, and Lowell Jewell rounding out the top 5 tonight at South Boston Speedway.

J R Shepherd is the unofficial season 21 champion currently with 471 points, 100 points ahead of Michael Goodman in 2nd place. Lowell Jewell holds onto 3rd place with 345 over Mathew Thunhorst with 345 points. Joseph Snyder rounds out the top 5 drivers with 301 points going into the final round of the season. Next week, the Bootleg Racing League is heading to Five Flags Speedway on March 18th to close out the season with all of the intense racing action brought to you live at 9PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!