The RB Performance Super Late Model Series wrapped up SARA Speedweek at NHMS on Thursday night with a 100-lap Triple Crown event at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
To start the night off, David Krikorian narrowly beat out Ty Majeski for the pole in Time Trials by just .001 seconds, and set a new track record while doing so with a lap of 28.528 seconds for his 16th career SARA pole. The top ten cars from Time Trials advanced into the Qualifying Dash, where an 8-car invert dropped Krikorian back and brought Bill Martin to the front of the field, and Martin took full advantage of it as he went on to lead every lap for the Dash victory.
Martin led the field to the green flag for the feature race, but a couple early caution slowed the pace in the opening laps. Throughout the first few short runs, Martin was able to maintain the lead by a few car lengths as things continued to sort out behind him. A lap 24 restart set up the first lengthy run of the night, and while Martin attempted to pull away out front once again, Majeski and Krikorian were starting to work their way towards the front, and it was Majeski that got to Martin’s back bumper first.
Majeski made his move to the inside of Martin, but the flat corners made it tough to gain the advantage on the low side while Martin maintained the momentum from the high lane. Majeski kept picking at the lead however and finally made his way by to take over the top spot by lap 33.
A caution on lap 41 introduced the pit strategy to the field, as nearly everyone came down during the caution to get new tires. While most of those cars took four tires, newcomer Sean Disbro gambled to gain track position and took just two tires to take the lead for the next restart. Disbro was able to hang onto the lead for a few laps, before Majeski finally got by him just past halfway on lap 51 as the caution came out. When the field took the lap 55 restart, they set out on a 41 lap green flag run nearly to the finish, which tested everyone to see who had a long run setup.
Majeski started to pull away out front as the rest of the field behind him began to battle it out. Martin who had run in 2nd began to fall off which allowed points leader Camaron Hamilton to take over the position. Hamilton had his hands full over the final 20 laps however as Ty Spearman and Tommy Burns chased him down and they battled nose-to-tail and side-by-side for much of the run. While they battled it also opened up the door for Krikorian and Windell Stratton to join the party, however as the intensity picked up, some slight contact within the pack resulted in some tough luck for Krikorian as he got spun on lap 96 to bring out the final caution.
Prior to the caution, Majeski had sailed away out front while everyone behind him were fighting for positions, and he had built his lead out to over nine seconds. He led the field back to the caution and then the checkered flag to pick up the victory, his 3rd of the season and his 58th career SARA win.
Ty Spearman carefully took his time getting back to the front after the mid-race cautions and was finally able to move up into a 2nd place finish after battling for the spot for about 15 laps. Tommy Burns was also able to move up in that same battle late to finish in 3rd after starting back in the 19th position. Hamilton ran inside the top five all race long and wasn’t quite able to hold of Spearman for the 2nd spot, but would hang on to finish in 4th. Windell Stratton rounded out the top five after he decided to start at the tail of the field, and picked his way through the pack to finish in 5th.
James Wenzel had another strong outing after he ran outside the top ten for the first half of the race, but made his way up and battled late to finish in 6th. Matt Rolfe ran just outside the top five for most of the race, and moved up to 3rd at one point before his tires fell off dropping him back to finish in 7th. Despite only taking two tires, Disbro was able to battle up front for a while before dropping back some but was able to maintain a spot in the top ten to finish 8th. Anthony Celentano ran just outside the top ten all night before picking up a couple spots late to take 9th. Martin rounded out the top ten after he lead a majority of the first half of the race, but used up his tires early in the second half which dropped him back to finish 10th.
With another top five finish, Camaron Hamilton was able to extend his points lead a little more in the standings up to 16 points, and he will lead the division into the division’s first trip to Southern National next week.