For just the second time in the last five weeks of the season, the RB Performance Super Late Model Series visited a true short track that was less than a mile, when they hit the track for their Week 10 event at Martinsville.
Last week’s Triple Crown winner at Milwaukee, Justin Brooks, picked right back up where he left off when he took his 33rd career SARA pole in time trials. Brooks then led the top 8 cars into the Qualifying Dash and went on to pick up the Dash victory, but a full invert of 8 cars would sent Brooks back to 8th, while Derek Holzhausen would be inverted to the front of the field.
Holzhausen led the field to the green flag for the 125-lap feature event, but a couple quick cautions early would slow the pace of the race down in the opening laps. The field finally settled in for the lap 21 restart as Holzhausen continued to lead, but Cody Kelley would quickly make his way into the top spot by lap 27. It was Brooks that was on the charge though as he continued to work his way up from his 8th starting spot, and then took over the lead on lap 40 until the next caution on lap 66.
Brooks led the field back to the final restart as the race would go green the rest of the way, but he brought David Krikorian along with him who had closed in on his rear bumper. On lap 83, Brooks decided to let Krikorian get by to take over the lead, but it proved to be the wrong move as Brooks would get moved back, and Krikorian would try to set sail out front. Ty Spearman worked his way up into the second spot and closed the gap from over a second, down to a few car lengths as the laps wound down. Krikorian took the white flag, with Spearman closing in on his rear bumper, but wouldn’t submit to the pressure and would come around to take the victory, his 4th of the season and his 16th career SARA win.
Spearman would come up just short but would finish in the 2nd spot after making his way back up from the back of the top ten earlier in the race. Cody Kelley also made up ground late in the race, closing in on the top two but would settle for a 3rd place finish. Brooks would take home the 4th spot after giving up the lead earlier in the race, and Mickey Kudlicki would round out the top five as he tied his best career SLM finish.
Just outside the top ten, Todd Sipe finished in the 6th spot after hanging around the top five all race long. Holzhausen led the event early but got shuffled back during the race, and would settle into a 7th place finish, just ahead of Kevin J Myers who finished 8th after being caught up in one of the early race incidents, and was the final car on the lead lap. Matt Eddy had a quiet night and gained 9 spots from his starting spot to finish 9th as the first car a lap down, with Dale Owen rounding out the top ten after also being caught up in an early crash.
With his 3rd place finish, Cody Kelley hangs onto the points lead, but the gap closes to just 3 points over Krikorian as the two will continue to battle it out as they head to Irwindale next week.