On Monday night, the SK Shootout Series visited the last great colosseum at Bristol for the 11th race of their season, and 28 cars would take the grid for the race.
In qualifying, Ty Majeski picked right back up where he’s been the last few weeks at the front of the field and grabbed his 44th career pole. He led the top 8 cars into the Qualifying Dash and had no issues in going on to take the Dash win. An invert of 6 moved Darrell Hamlin up to the front of the field for the feature, but Majeski would have to start at the tail end of the field after winning the previous three races in the division.
Hamlin led the field to the green flag and led the opening laps, until his teammate Davey Riendeau got by just 4 laps in. Early in the race, the high banks of Bristol played havoc with some of the field as a number of top contenders would get collected in wrecks. As the race continued, Bill Martin was able to make his way to the top spot on lap 35, but it was just a matter of time before Majeski started picking off cars and made his way towards the front. One slip by Martin on lap 55 allowed Majeski to get room on the outside, and he would take the lead away and never gave it back up. Majeski would go on to lead the final 46 laps and went on to pick up his 4th consecutive win in the division, and his 43rd career victory.
Behind Majeski, Ty Spearman picked up a runner-up finish after hanging around the top five for most of the race. Ryan Borges was one of four drivers inside the top five that started deep in the pack after a subpar qualifying lap, but worked his way up through the field and ended up with a podium finish in 3rd. Dark Gress missed qualifying and started at the back and came through the field for 4th, with Travis Warling rounding out the top five after starting back in 20th.
Just outside the top five, Michael German recovered from an early incident that put him two laps down to get back on the lead lap for a 6th place finish. Much like German, the rest of the top ten were also involved in some kind of incident throughout the race as Bristol proved to be tough on equipment. Anthony Celentano finished 7th, with Todd Sipe, Matt Eddy, and Mark Welch each rounding out the top ten from 8th through 10th respectively.
Another driver that got caught up in a wreck was points leader Cody Kelley, and his points lead shrinks down to just 21 points leaving Bristol. Kelley will look to pick up his 4th SARA championship in four different divisions next week at South Boston, and can clinch the title with a 4th place finish.