Schaffer Conquers Stafford for Victory

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On Tuesday night, the Sportsman Street Stock Series rolled into Stafford for the 9th race of their season.

Casey Kelley picked up his 7th pole of the season in qualifying, but after winning the division’s previous two races, he was forced to start at the tail end of the field. This moved Joe Schaffer to the front row of the field to start the 75-lap feature event. Schaffer quickly jumped out into the lead, and it became apparent early in the race that a long run was ahead of the field. The race ended up going green to checkers without any cautions, which allowed Schaffer to run and hide out front, dominating the event as he went on to lead all 75 laps to pick up the victory. The win was his first Street Stock win of the season, and his 2nd career SARA victory.

Behind Schaffer, Kevin J Myers quickly moved into the 2nd spot by lap 10, but by that time he was already 2 seconds behind the leader and was unable to close the gap, to finish in the 2nd position. The battle near the front early in the race was between Darrell Hamlin, Tim Bills, and Matt Rolfe as they ran nose-to-tail, and it was Bills that was able to move up into 3rd on lap 36 and he would end up finishing on the podium. Rolfe would move up to 4th shortly after and would finish there, with Hamlin rounding out the top five.

Just outside the top five, Kelley was able to recover up to a 6th place finish after starting at the back of the field and an early race spin. The 7th spot changed hands a number of times during the final 10 laps of the race, and it was Cody Thompson that beat out Ian Layne and Blake Brown who finished 8th and 9th respectively. Russell Berry rounded out the top ten in 10th.

With a 6th place finish, Casey Kelley maintains his points lead which shrinks down to 16 points heading into next week’s race at Langley.