BRL LM S21 R11 Recap

18 March 2023
Bootleg Racing League | Season 21 | Round 11
Late Model Series | Five Flags Speedway

Joseph Snyder with Rougarou Racing took his first win in the series and the final checkered flag of the season tonight in the Bootleg Racing League Late Model Series presented by Gargamel’s Kitchen at Five Flags Speedway ahead of Mike Holloway and Michael Goodman. “All I worked on this week was saving tires and I guess it paid off there because the guys I let by early, they kind of lost their tires and I got back into it”, Snyder shared with us as drivers were putting their cars on the trailers.

Michael Goodman threw down the quickest lap in qualifying clocked at 16.679 starting the night off in 10th from the Bootleg Racing League grid invert with Kevin Nunn sitting on the pole. “It’s a little bit of pressure”, Nunn commented before returning to his car to grid up, “I did learn a lot last week since I had the front tire blow at 82 laps, so I know I’m going to try to conserve a bit more this time around.” Coming out of turn 4, Nunn had a strong launch and quickly went single file ahead of Donny Moore.

Most of the field shuffled to get slotting in single file in the opening laps looks to preserve their equipment with so many laps ahead of them. Mathew Thunhorst was running back in 10th and was patiently taking one position after another as he moved up through the field. Moore took advantage of a mistake made by Nunn on lap 16 to overtake for the lead resulting in Nunn getting stuck on the outside and dropping far down in the running order. Snyder looking under Moore but could make it work allowing Lowell Jewell to take a look under Snyder pushing him back to 8th before slotting back in line behind Michael Goodman.

Thunhorst was up to 5th with the first 30 laps completed as Moore continued to lead the field around with Jewell tight on his bumper. Lowell saw his chance and dove low taking the lead going into lap 35 with Todd Liston following him through. Thunhorst took advantage of the situation to get around into 3rd place. Thunhorst started to turn up the aggression getting around Liston for 2nd and closing on Jewell only 40 laps into the night. Going into lap 42, Thunhorst secured the lead and started to break away from the rest of the field with Jewell and Liston still running 2nd and 3rd.

Matt Hoose was up 5 spots running in 4th and quickly closing on Liston going into the 2nd half of the night with Snyder close behind making a strong recovery. Liston was able to get a nose under Jewell with Hoose following him through pushing Jewell back to 4th with Stephen Spies closing the gap with a group of cars following him as the field merged back together from 2nd place back to 10th. Thunhorst had nearly a 3 second lead going into lap 60 as Hoose overtook Liston for 2nd.

With the laps quickly counting down, Thunhorst had extended his lead out to over 5 seconds with 25 laps remaining. Hoose still held onto 2nd place with Michael Goodman now running in 3rd. Spies was under pressure from Snyder making a strong charge back to front of the pack. Snyder continued his impressive pace making quick work of the drivers ahead clearing into 2nd place with 14 laps to go. Going into the final 10 laps, the gap between Snyder and Thunhorst was shrinking quickly.

Snyder continued to push in the final moments gaining on Thunhorst fast closing by 0.4 seconds each lap. Snyder caught Thunhorst in turn 3 making contact just as the caution flag and white flag came out together when Thunhorst had to check up unexpectedly with his right front tire giving out. Joseph Snyder lead the drivers around the final lap under caution to take the checkered flag with Mike Holloway, Michael Goodman, Kurt Smith, and Mathew Thunhorst round out the top 5 tonight at Five Flags Speedway.

J R Shepherd ran away in the point standings taking the season championship tonight with 471 points. Michael Goodman held onto 2nd place with 419 points. Lowell Jewell secured 3rd place with 377 points over Mathew Thunhorst with 344 points. Joseph Snyder rounds out the top 5 drivers with 342 points going into the final round of the season. Next season for the Bootleg Racing League kicks off at New Smyrna Speedway on March 25th with all of the intense racing action brought to you live at 9PM ET exclusively on the Virtual Grip Network!