We officially closed out the 2014 SARA race season over a week ago when we wrapped things up with the Clash4Cash, and now it’s time to hand out some awards for the 2014 Fall Season. We added a 5th division to the league this past season which was a success, and all 5 divisions will be back in action for the start of 2015. In the Fall Season, we averaged 120 cars per week across all divisions, which included over 17 cars per race for the Legends all the way up to nearly 33 cars per race for the Super Late Models. And we couldn’t do any of it without all of the drivers that competed in SARA in the Fall Season. We start off almost every race by saying “Thank you guys for coming out”, and we really mean it. There’s a number of guys that often get the spotlight on the website and Facebook, but this league is about every single driver that participates with us, so really, thank you guys. We’re getting ready to gear up for the 2015 season, but first, let’s hand out some awards.
First, we need to recognize all three of our champions for their accomplishments in each division. Your champions are:
RB Performance Super Late Model Series Champion – Justin Brooks – 1st SARA Championship
MRolfeDesigns Pro Late Model Series Champion – Bill Martin – 1st SARA Championship
SK Shootout Series Champion – Stan Bragg – 1st SARA Championship
Sportsman Street Stock Series – Bill Martin – 2nd SARA Championship
NEO Racing News Legends League – Bill Martin – 3rd SARA Championship
NEO RACING NEWS LEGENDS LEAGUE AWARDS:
Legends Rookie of the Season Award – Ryan Borges
Legends Winner’s Circle Award – Travis Warling – 6 Wins
Legends Pole Award – Bill Martin – 6 Poles
SPORTSMAN STREET STOCK SERIES AWARDS:
Street Stocks Rookie of the Season Award – Todd Sipe
Street Stocks Winner’s Circle Award – Justin Brooks & Ty Majeski – 4 Wins Each
Street Stocks Pole Award – Ty Majeski – 5 Poles
SK SHOOTOUT SERIES AWARDS:
SK Modified Rookie of the Season Award – Ryan Borges
SK Modified Winner’s Circle Award – Stan Bragg – 2 Wins
SK Modified Pole Award – Bill Martin & Kevin Myers – 2 Poles Each
MROLFEDESIGNS PRO LATE MODEL SERIES AWARDS:
Pro Late Model Rookie of the Season Award – Cody Kelley
Pro Late Model Winner’s Circle Award – Bill Martin – 5 Wins
Pro Late Model Pole Award – Bill Martin, Ty Majeski & Jarrid Boiros – 2 Poles Each
RB PERFORMANCE SUPER LATE MODEL SERIES AWARDS:
Super Late Model Rookie of the Season Award – Ian Layne
Super Late Model Winner’s Circle Award – Justin Brooks – 5 Wins
Super Late Model Pole Award – Justin Brooks – 4 Poles
IRONMAN AWARD – Awarded to the driver that attended the most races of the season in all five divisions
Ken Belanger – Once again, KB has picked up our Ironman award, as he was the driver that made the most starts in the league this past season. KB ran in nearly every single race, only missing one single event at the beginning of the season in the SLM division. KB inherited the points lead in the Street Stock division about half way through the season, and held onto it for a number of races, which we believe was the first time in his long career that he had been in a points lead. As we head into the 2015 season, there’s no doubt that KB will be there, as he should become the first SARA driver in league history to reach the 300 start milestone, as he sits just 6 races away from that achievement as of this post.
VIRGIN WINNER AWARDS – Awarded to the drivers who picked up their first career SARA victories this past season
JayJay Day – Super Late Model win at Langley
Casey Kelley – Super Late Model win at New Smyrna
Cody Kelley – Pro Late Model win at New Smyrna
Kevin Myers – SK Shootout win at NHMS
Stan Bragg – SK Shootout win at Irwindale
Parker Traves – Sportsman Street Stock win at Charlotte
Ryan Borges – Legends win at the Las Vegas Legends Oval
Jared Fountain – Legends win at Irwindale Inner
Kyle Scisco – Legends win at Langley
SAFE DRIVER DISCOUNT AWARDS – Awarded to the drivers who received the most incident free races
Stan Bragg – 6 total incident free races (all divisions), lowest INC/race in the SK Shootout division
Justin Brooks – 8 total incident free races (all divisions), lowest INC/race in the Super Late Model division
Ryan Borges – 10 total incident free races (all divisions), lowest INC/race in the Legends division
Matt Rolfe – 10 total incident free races (all divisions), lowest INC/race in the Sportsman Street Stock division
Cody Kelley – 10 total incident free races (all divisions), lowest INC/race in the Pro Late Model division
Overall Safest Driver – Bill Martin – 15 total incident free races (all divisions)
HARD LUCK AWARD – Awarded to the driver who didn’t have very much luck on their side this season
Kevin Myers – Before his team, The Posse, all decided to join SARA and run with us full time for the most part, Kevin had some scattered starts with us going all the way back to the first season of 2013. And luck hasn’t always been on his side. But as we’ve gotten used to, Kevin is almost always guaranteed to be running at the front of the pack, battling within the top 5 and for the race lead, and he did a lot of that this past season. He finally broke through to pick up his first 2 career SARA wins, but there were also a couple of other races that would end early due to a number of reasons. And his season ended with some bad luck as well when he entered the final race of the SK season with the points lead, but found trouble in that race and would drop to 3rd in the final standings when it was all over after his race ended early. If Kevin’s luck ever turns around in this league, we could all be in trouble and there could be plenty of more wins coming down the line for him, and we look for him to rebound strongly and hopefully contend for another title in 2015.
SPORTSMAN AWARD – Awarded to a driver who embodies the spirit of sportsmanship and achievement. A driver who shows respect, races cleanly, was willing to help or share feedback, and represents what this league is all about.
Ian Layne – Ian is a newcomer to the league, as he joined us for the start of the Fall Season, but he’s exactly the kind of driver that we want to keep around in this league. He probably didn’t pick up the stats he would have hoped for, with just 1 top 5 and 8 top 10s in the 32 races he started, but he raced week-in and week-out in both the PLM and SLM divisions, and made some other appearances in the other divisions as well. And in those races, we don’t remember there being a single race all season long where Ian didn’t impress us in some way. He often went through the races being very quiet and clean, he was always respectful to race around, and there were never any issues with him. And none of that went unnoticed, as it earned him a spot in our Clash4Cash All-Star race, as well as this Sportsman Award to go with it. As stated in the intro to this post, there’s a number of drivers that often get the league’s spotlight for good reason, but it’s drivers like Ian who make this league what it is, and we hope to see Ian back with us again in 2015.
DRIVER OF THE SEASON – Awarded to the driver that had the best overall performance of the season
Bill Martin – It’s not really much of a surprise to us that Bill had a good season, but I don’t think we quite expected the dominant breakout season that he had. Coming into the season, he only had 1 previous SARA pole, and this past season he picked up 14 more poles which led the entire league. Coming into the season, he only had 1 previous SARA win, and this past season he picked up 12 more wins which also led the entire league. His impressive stat line for the entire season reads: 55 starts, 45 top 10s, 36 top 5s, 14 poles, 12 wins, 876 laps led, and on top of that, he earned himself not 1, not 2, but 3 SARA championships when it was all over. Bill locked up the Pro Late Model championship during Week 10, he locked up the Sportsman Street Stock championship in Week 11, and capped it all off by picking up the Legends championship in the final race of the season. He also ended the season on the top of the Power Rankings as well for his strong performances throughout the season. Bill definitely stepped his game up this past season, and he’s going to be quite the force once again in 2015. It’s not hard to argue with all of the numbers that he put up this season, which is why Bill is our 2014 Fall Season Driver of the Season.