The Sportsman Street Stock Series made the trip out west tonight for their 75 lap event at the Irwindale Speedway. 16 drivers would take time in qualifying and Matt Rolfe would pick up the pole and would lead the field to the green flag.
As the field took off, Rolfe would get the jump from the outside lane, as James Poleske would fall in behind him as they looked to battle it out for the lead in the early laps. On lap 4, Poleske would make a move to the inside but the two drivers would make contact and spun, putting them both to the rear of the field.
This gave the lead to Derek Robinson on the restart, and he would take full advantage of being up front. As he pulled away on the restarts, there was plenty of action behind him. Clay Snider and Ronald Williams battled it our for the 2nd spot for a number of laps, while other drivers such as Rolfe and Poleske were making their way back to the front. During the longest run of the night, you could throw a blanket over those four drivers as the ran side by side for a number of laps while other drivers were following right behind them waiting for them to slip up.
On the final restart of the race, Robinson was put side-by-side with Snider on the front row. Robinson would get the jump and while Snider dropped in behind him, he would look to just hang onto second place but got loose entering the corner with just 2 laps to go. The field looked to avoid the spin but a number of cars would get collected including a few of the front runners which would definitely shake up the finishing order.
But out ahead of the incident, Robinson would go onto pick up the checkers, earning his first Street Stock victory of the season. Behind him, Brian Tedeschi was able to recover and avoid the crash to grab the 2nd spot, while Rolfe also rebounded for 3rd despite getting some damage on that last accident. Adam Jordan had a quiet night but picked up another top 5 with a 4th place finish, followed by Williams to round out the top 5. Rolfe would gain just 2 points on the night, and now leads Jordan by only 6 points heading into next week’s race at Thompson.
1. Derek Robinson
2. Brian Tedeschi
3. Matt Rolfe
4. Adam Jordan
5. Ronald Williams
6. Ken Belanger
7. Scott Dunlap
8. Clay Snider
9. Mike Belanger
10. Brian Gavin
11. David Krikorian
12. Scott Hutchison
13. James Linkiewicz
14. Daniel Haaser
15. James Poleske
16. Jacob Linkiewicz
Next week the series heads to the always difficult Thompson Speedway for 75 laps of action.
For full results and standings, click HERE.