Myers Visits Magic Mile Victory Lane

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Myers_SK_Win

The SK Shootout Series marked the return of Modifieds to SARA competition last night as they visited the New Hampshire Motor Speedway for their season opener. 30 different drivers would take practice laps for the 75-lap event, and when qualifying got under way, Kevin J Myers would put his fast lap in early and he shot to the top of the charts with a time of 31.358 seconds to take the pole spot on the grid, while Kenny Lindsley took the second spot on the front row.

When the field came around for the green flag, it was Myers that led them out of turn 4 to start the race. With 27 cars actually starting the event, there were some high expectations that the drivers could spread out and get a lot of green flag racing in, but that wasn’t the case for much of the event. Two drivers would get together on lap two as they tried to avoid a slower car that had mechanical issues, which would bring the caution out for the first of 12 times. When the field got the chance to get some green flag racing in, there was plenty of action at the front of the field as Myers looked to hold of Stan Brag, Lindsley, Dale Owen and others within the top 5 throughout much of the early stages of the race. James and Jacob Linkiewicz both battle it out for the 5th and 6th spots, as they changed the position many times on the restarts.

Matt Eddy became the newest member of the 100-start club, as he took the green from the 8th place, becoming just the 9th driver in SARA history to reach that milestone. The next driver in line to hit that mark, currently has just 74 starts. But Eddy’s run didn’t go as planned as he was one of the many to get caught up in incidents throughout the race and wound up with a 17th place finish.

At the front of the field, Bragg would use a lap 46 restart to muscle the lead away from Myers, and Bragg looked content to holding him off on the following restarts. But as the race started to wind down, a lap 64 restart would see Bragg jump out to the lead, but Myers wouldn’t give up that easy as he was able to grab the spot back away from him on the next lap with Owen and Jacob Linkiewicz right on their tails. With all the close racing however, Owen and Linkiewicz would get together, dropping Owen to the back of the field. One last restart with 5 laps to go set the field up for their finish, but just 2 laps into the run, it was Linkiewicz that got turned around this time, which brought out the final caution of the race.

Myers was able to hold off Bragg on that final restart, and he would bring the field around to the checkered flag where he would pick up his first career SARA victory, finally breaking into the win column after six previous runner-up finishes and many other strong runs. Bragg would finish off his strong run with a 2nd place finish, while Camaron Hobbs recovered from an earlier incident to work his way up to the podium spot. Ray Farlow would finish 4th, and Todd Sipe would get scored in 5th for a top 5.

1. Kevin Myers
2. Stan Bragg
3. Camaron Hobbs
4. Ray Farlow
5. Todd Sipe
6. Cody Leland
7. Ian Layne
8. Bill Martin
9. Mike Testa
10. Mike Rhyno
11. Dale Owen
12. Darren Daves
13. Patrick Hahe
14. Jacob Linkiewicz
15. Timothy Finnegan
16. Devan Rittall
17. Matt Eddy
18. Kenny Lindsley
19. Derek Robinson
20. James Linkiewicz
21. Chris Stewart
22. Mike Belanger
23. Jeff Hoggard
24. Ken Belanger
25. Reggie Evans
26. Patrick O’neill
27. TJ Graves

The series will look to rebound from the rough race when they visit Irwindale in two weeks for a 100 lap event.

With the win, Myers leaves the Magic Mile with the points lead over Bragg in 2nd by 8 points. For the full results and points, click HERE.