This past Monday night, the NEO Racing News SK Shootout Series took on the Lanier National Speedway for a 125 lap feature event, and the 3rd race of their season.
The night started off with Ty Majeski setting his 55th career fast time, setting a new track record with a lap of 12.604 seconds for the pole. The top ten cars from Time Trials advanced into the Qualifying Dash, and an 8-car invert sent Majeski back into the pack while Clay Snider was inverted to the front of the field. Snider held off a charging Michael German and went on to pick up the Dash victory.
Snider led the field to the green flag in the feature race, but it was Colin Allman that got the jump from the outside groove. As Allman gained the advantage and looked to lead lap 1, contact between him and Snider resulted with Allman’s race ending early while Snider dropped to the back. The early incident handed the lead over to Michael German, and during an early green flag run, German started to pull away at the front of the field.
While German continued to lead, Majeski was beginning to work his way back towards the front of the field after getting caught up in the early caution. A pair of cautions just prior to halfway setup a restart on lap 61, where German jumped into the lead but Majeski quickly fell in line behind him and began to pressure German for the lead.
Majeski made his move under German for the lead and took over on lap 63. From there, Majeski went on to build a lead just over three seconds ahead, but a couple late restarts allowed the field another shot at him. He was too strong however and quickly jumped back into the lead when another caution on lap 122 forced the race to end under caution and Majeski came around to take the checkered flag. The win was his 3rd straight in the SK Modified division, and his 53rd career SARA victory.
Behind Majeski, Dale Owen finished in the 2nd spot after he moved up into the top three prior to halfway and battled there for most of the race. Matt Eddy battled back from an early incident and being a lap down, to work his way back into the top ten before sneaking through the final caution to take a 3rd place finish. Matt Rolfe battled towards the back half of the top ten before moving up late to finish in 4th. Anthony Celentano also had to battle back from an earlier spin to work back up to a top five finish in 5th.
Just outside the top five, Michael Baxter had an up-and-down night within the top ten before eventually moving up late to take 6th. Ian Layne made his way up into the top five during the late stages of the race before getting caught up in the final incident which dropped him into a 7th place finish. Tom Wetmore recovered from his lap one incident and fought back up inside the top ten to take an 8th place finish. Cody Thompson ended up finishing 9th after he ran up in the 2nd position for dos of the race before dropping back as a part of the final caution. Alex O’Bryan ran outside of the top ten for much of the night before finishing in the 10th spot, his first career SARA top ten.
After his 3rd straight win to start off the season, Ty Majeski has already build a commanding 43 point lead in the standings and will lead the field into this next week’s makeup event at Oxford which was postponed from a couple weeks ago.