Last Thursday night, the RB Performance Super Late Models took the stage at the Milwaukee Mile, with the event being renamed to the Dan Weinfurter Memorial 150 while being broadcasted live by LSRTV, for the 2nd event of their Triple Crown.
In time trials, Derek Holzhausen picked up his 2nd career SARA pole as the only car to break into the 30.2 second range. He would lead the top 8 cars into the Qualifying Dash and he was able to hold onto the lead to pick up the Dash win. An invert of 4 after the Dash would see Holzhausen moved back to 4th for the feature, and Ty Spearman was inverted to the front.
When the cameras started rolling on LSRTV, Spearman led the field to the green flag and jumped out into the lead. It took just 5 laps for Justin Brooks to take that top spot away however, but as the run went on, both Cody Kelley and Casey Kelley each took their turn at the front of the field as there didn’t seem to be any clear favorite in the early laps.
A caution on lap 56 would shake things up however as the first of three pit strategies would begin to play out. Joe Schaffer was hoping there would be no more cautions as the race went on so he gambled to take fresh tires as well as two others, and on the restart, Schaffer would go straight to the front of the field as a long green flag run began. While the strategy looked like it may pay off for a while, Schaffer would eventually lose the lead due to connection issues.
As the green flag run continued, drivers were starting to fight the handling on their cars and it was Matt Rolfe who started off the next round of pit strategy as he came down pit road to get tires under green flag conditions. A handful of other cars would do the same thing and were also banking on no more cautions in the race as they were making up over a second per lap over the cars that continued to stay out.
The patience would final pay off for those guys who had stayed on the track and saved their tires, as they finally got the caution they needed on lap 117. This allowed Justin Brooks and David Krikorian, among others, to come down pit road and they would have the freshest tires at the end of the race, and it was just what they needed as they had fallen back during the run. Brooks quickly used the fresh rubber to get out into the lead, with Krikorian not too far behind. As the laps wound down, Krikorian made one last run, closing up to the rear of Brooks in the lead, but Brooks was too strong in the closing laps and was able to hang on to take home the victory in the Dan Weinfurter Memorial 150. The win for Brooks was his 35th career SARA victory.
Behind Brooks, Krikorian picked up a 2nd place finish after falling back outside the top ten a couple times on the night, but used the late pit strategy to move up, along with James Linkiewicz who took 3rd on the same strategy. Casey Kelley was one of the last cars to pit during the green flag cycle, and had fresh enough tires to hold onto the 4th spot, with Kyle Holzhausen rounding out the top five in 5th after also waiting to pit until late.
Just outside the top five, Cody Kelley picked up a 6th place finish, as one of those cars who pitted under green to get tires earlier in the run. Tim Bills and Matt Rolfe were each on the same strategy, by pitting during green and were able to keep their cars on the lead lap to pick up 7th and 8th place finishes respectively. Cody Thompson finished as the first car one lap down in 9th, and Matt Eddy would hang onto a 10th place finish after he was one of those cars that gambled early in the race by taking his tires around lap 60.
With a 6th place finish, Cody Kelley hangs onto the points lead but that lead shrunk after Milwaukee down to just 11 points, as the division heads to Martinsville in Week 10. David Krikorian leads the Triple Crown standings with a win and a 2nd place finish, and will look to close that out later in the season at South Boston.