The RB Performance Super Late Model Series ran the 2nd event of their season at New Smyrna on Thursday night. 33 drivers brough their cars out to attempt to qualify for the 125-lap event.
The night got started off with time trials which saw Cody Kelley take the fast time by just .03 seconds over 2nd place. This would put Kelley on the pole for the Qualifying Dash which brought the 8 fastest cars into a quick 8 lap shootout for bonus points, and Kelley would lead every lap of it to take the Dash win. This would invert him back to 8th for the feature event, while Camaron Hamilton was inverted to the top spot.
Hamilton led the field to the green flag in the feature event, and quickly jumped out to a half-second lead. Throughout the first half of the race, Hamilton had things under control as he held off Joe Schaffer Jr. and James Linkiewicz throughout some of the runs. But it was just after half way during the course of a couple green flag stretches which allowed Cody Kelley to work his way to the front, and he made his move to the top spot on lap 81 to take over the lead. As the race winded down, it looked as if Kelley was surely on his way to victory, but on the lap 118 restart he would restart in the wrong gear which allowed David Krikorian to power by on the outside to take over the lead. A caution just two laps later would seal the win for Krikorian as he brought the field to the yellow and checkered flags.
Despite the small mishap, Kelley would hang to finish with a disappointing 2nd after leading the race late. Richard Bruce finished on the podium after starting back in the 15th position by slowly working his way to the front and picking up positions late to move up. After an early incident, Tyler Breeding was able to recover from going a lap down and charged back through the field to pick up 4th, and Casey Kelley rounded out the top five in 5th after running up front for a majority of the race.
Just outside the top five, Trent Brown ended up with a 6th place finish after an up-and-down kind of night, including an incident in the first half of the race. Darren Daves was the big mover on the night after starting back in the 27th position and he was able to work his way up into the top ten in the final laps to grab 7th. Schaffer Jr. ran in the runner-up position for the first half of the race but would fall back a few positions in the 2nd half which brought him back to an 8th place finish. Dale Owen also had an up-and-down night before moving up to a 9th place finish late, while Ty Spearman rounded out the top ten after recovering from a pair of incidents throughout the race to finish in the 10th spot.
Out front though, it was David Krikorian who picked up the checkered flag after stealing the lead late in the race. The win was his 2nd career Super Late Model win and his 12th career win overall.
With the 2nd place finish, Cody Kelley leaves New Smyrna with the points lead by 16 points over his brother Casey.