The 2015 Fall Season came to a close last night, as the RB Performance Super Late Model Series raced the final event of the season during a part of SoBo Championship Week. While Matt Rolfe had already clinched the championship entering the night, there was still plenty to race for in the 200-lap season finale.
The night got under way with Time Trials and Matt Rolfe set the fast lap to pick up the pole, setting a new track record at 13.792 seconds. The top ten cars advanced into the Qualifying Dash and were all inverted, sending Rolfe to the back of the pack while Derek Robinson was inverted to the lead. Robinson led the first few laps of the Dash until he got loose and got together with Chuck Sweeting, which allowed Tom Wetmore to sneak by to take the Dash win.
Robinson led the field back to the green flag for the feature event, and led until lap 8 when Scott Schrader took over the top spot. Schrader held the lead until lap 22, when his car got loose out in front and spun into the inside wall, leaving a number of cars behind him with no where to go. The incident knocked out a couple of the top contenders, and handed the lead over to Wetmore. After the restart, Wetmore jumped into the lead, with Dale Owen joining him as the two leaders began to pull away. Wetmore moved his car up into the 2nd groove, leaving the door open for Owen, but the momentum on the high side prevailed as Wetmore was able to hang onto the lead until a caution on lap 92.
The caution brought Wetmore down pit road for tires, while Owen stayed out on track. Another caution on lap 113 allowed Owen to get his new tires, and the two drivers would work back to the front to battle it out during the rest of the event. Wetmore held the lead and again rode up in the high lane. Owen made a number of attempts throughout the final laps, peeking his nose down to the bottom groove but wasn’t able to make it stick. Wetmore held off Owen during the final laps, and came around to take the victory. The win for Wetmore was his first Super Late Model win, and the 3rd win of his career.
Behind Wetmore, Owen put up a good fight as he battled for the lead all night long but came up a spot short and finished 2nd. Matt Eddy had a quiet first half of the race until the midpoint caution allowed him to work up into the top five, before settling into a 3rd place finish. Chuck Sweeting ran inside the top five all race and ended up with a 4th place finish, which is his best SARA finish so far. Russell Berry chose to start at the back of the field, and was able to work his way into the top five during the second half of the race and rounded out the top five with a 5th place finish.
With Rolfe already having the championship locked up, he entered the night with nothing to lose but was caught up in an incident and finished 9th. Jason Williams entered the night leading the Triple Crown standings by 1 point over Rolfe, and despite being caught up in the same wreck together, Williams was able to finish 7th which was enough to grab the Triple Crown title, with finishes of 4th, 3rd, 7th.
Congratulations to Matt Rolfe, the 2015 Fall Season RB Performance Super Late Model Series champion. Rolfe also secured the Qualifying Dash championship by picking up a total of 22 bonus points via the Dash. Rolfe’s championship season consisted of 0 wins, 1 poles, 10 top fives, 12 top tens, and 51 laps led. The title is his 5th career SARA championship.
