The NEO Racing News SK Shootout Series returned to the Oxford Plains Speedway this past Monday night for a 100 lap make up event after their Week 2 event got postponed earlier in the season.
For the 3rd straight week, Ty Majeski set the fast lap in qualifying to kick off the night with a lap of 14.118 seconds, to take his 58th career SARA pole. The top ten cars from Time Trials advanced into the Qualifying Dash, and a 7-car invert sent Majeski back into the pack while Ian Layne was inverted to the front of the field. Layne went on to lead every lap in the Dash to get the win and some extra bonus points.
Layne led the field to the green flag once again for the feature event, but a few cautions in the early laps slowed the pace of the race. During a couple of the shorter runs, he was able to maintain a couple car length lead, but another restart on lap 34 allowed some of the faster guys to close the gap and put the pressure on for the top spot.
On the restart, Layne jumped out ahead while Bill Martin moved up into 2nd, but Martin had his hands full as he battled with Majeski. Eventually Majeski took over the spot, and then chased down the leader at the front of the field. Majeski got the run he needed and peeked his nose to the inside, and came around to take the lead by lap 44.
The green flag run lasted until lap 77 which set up one final restart with about 18 laps to the finish. On the restart, Majeski jumped out ahead and had pulled away by nearly a second before Martin settled into 2nd. Martin was able to maintain pace in the closing laps, but wasn’t able to catch the leader as the laps wound down. Majeski maintained his gap out in front of the field and came around to pick up the checkered flag and the victory, for his 56th career SARA win. The win also marked his 4th straight win in the SK division, as he’s been unbeatable so far this season.
Behind Majeski, Martin came up a spot short after being nearly equal as the leader in the closing laps but couldn’t shrink the gap and had to settle for 2nd. Layne was able to maintain his spot on the podium, hanging within the top three after giving up the lead and finished in 3rd. Both Matt Rolfe and Dale Owen spent their races battling in-and-out of the top five before ending up finishing in the 4th and 5th positions respectively.
James Wenzel just missed out on a top five when he crossed the line with a 6th place finish after running as high as 2nd in the early stages of the race. Michael Baxter had a solid run as he came from outside the top ten up into the 7th spot where he settled into and finished. Jared Turnbull had to recover from an early race spin but was able to make his way back up into a 8th place finish. Clay Snider and Michael Baxter both ran towards the back half of the top ten all race long before eventually finishing in the 9th and 10th positions respectively.
Ty Majeski’s commanding point lead in the standings extended out to 63 and he will lead the field into the division’s first trip to Southern National next Monday night.