The Dirt Late Model Series continued the 2017 Summer Season Championship Week on Wednesday night with a 100-lap feature event to close out their season. Entering the night, Ty Spearman led Joe Schaffer Jr. by just 4 points at the top of the standings, meaning every point on the night would be critical in deciding the title.
Race Winner – Joe Schaffer Jr. benefitted from the Pole Shuffle to start on the pole and led the opening laps of the race, gaining some bonus points. That lead would go away on lap 14 though as Matt Rolfe used a slider to grab the lead, but the two would swap the lead back and forth for a couple laps before Rolfe would eventually prevail. Rolfe held a commanding lead for a long 70 lap run, and then had to hold off Cameron Higgins and Dante Curtis in the late laps. Rolfe would go on to pick up the win, his 2nd of the season and his 27th career SARA victory.
Heat Winners – Matt Rolfe and Joe Schaffer Jr. both started on the pole of their respective Heat Races and both took victory.
Hard Charger – Bruce Perry started outside the top ten in 11th and battled around the top five all night before finishing 5th, gaining 6 spots on the night.
Title Fight – The gap was just 4 points entering the night for Ty Spearman, but when Joe Schaffer Jr. picked up 5 bonus points from the Heat Race and leading a lap, it would come down to just one single spot on the track at the end of the race to decide the title. Spearman ran in front of Schaffer in the late laps until getting collected in a lap 92 caution. This put Schaffer out in front of Spearman on a late restart, and Spearman would give it one last effort on the final lap to gain the spot back, but Schaffer would barely nose ahead coming to the line which was enough to take the championship. The title for Schaffer is his 5th career SARA championship, with 1 win, 6 top fives, 8 top tens, and 89 laps led. Congrats to Joe Schaffer Jr., the 2017 Summer Season Late Model Series champion!
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