The NEO Racing News SK Shootout Series made their first ever trip to the Concord Speedway this past Monday night, for a 100 lap feature event at the unique tri-oval.
After missing last week’s race at NHMS, Ty Majeski picked right back up where he left off by picking up his 5th pole of the season, and the 60th of his SARA career with a lap of 15.687 seconds. The top ten cars from Time Trials advanced into the Qualifying Dash, and an 7-car invert sent Martin back into the pack while Matt Eddy was inverted to the front of the field. Eddy led the opening laps of the Dash, but it didn’t take long for Majeski to charge to the front to take the Dash win for some extra bonus points.
Matt Eddy brought the field around to take the green flag for the feature event, but a quick caution on lap 1 and another one on lap 10 slowed the pace of the race down early. On the lap 15 restart, Eddy chose to start on the outside and was clear into the lead, but just a couple laps later, Matt Rolfe was making the move back to the inside to take the lead, bringing Majeski with him into 2nd.
While Rolfe was able to take over the top spot, he had his work cut out for him as Majeski was breathing down his neck trying to get by. Rolfe was able to extend the gap to a couple car lengths at times, but Majeski started to reel him in and made his move to the inside entering turn 3 on lap 26. Rolfe was able to hang on from the outside, but just a couple laps later, Majeski was able to make the same move and this time had enough to take over on lap 28.
With Majeski now in the lead, he would start to stretch his legs and began to pull away out front as the lead extended out to about 1.7 seconds before the next caution on lap 43. That margin would be a common number throughout the next couple of runs as Majeski pulled out to a 1.7 second gap prior to a lap 65 caution, and once again pulled out to the same gap prior to the final caution on lap 93.
The final caution set up a 1-lap dash to the finish, and Majesi quickly jumped into the lead and never gave the rest of the field a chance as he came around to take the checkered flags. The win for Majeski was the 6th of his season, and the 59th victory of his career.
Behind Majeski, Dale Owen finished in the 2nd spot after dropping to the back early in the race and charged his way into the top five before moving up late to take 2nd. Ian Layne had a quiet night, hanging around the 5th spot or lower, but put himself into position late to move up into a 3rd place finish on the podium. Patrick Hahe moved into the top five early before falling off towards the back of the pack, but then worked his way back towards the front to take 4th. Clay Snider had to recover from a couple incidents, and battled back to round out the top five in 5th. Matt Eddy, Bill Martin, Eric Block, Matt Rolfe, and Michael German rounded out the top ten.
With a runner-up finish, Dale Owen maintains his points lead in the standings, but it shrinks down to just 6 points heading into next week’s double features at the Bristol Motor Speedway..