The Callaway Investments Sportsman Street Stock series continued their Old Dominion Swing with a visit to the .395 mile Langley Speedway this past Tuesday night for a 100 lap feature event.
Tim Bills kicked off the afternoon with a pole lap of 16.644 seconds, with the top five in qualifying being separated by just half a tenth of a second. An eight car invert would shake up the front of the field, placing Scott Dunlap and Russell Berry on the front row for the race and the Dash. The top ten cars from Time Trials advanced into the Qualifying Dash, where Dunlap led the field through a wild first lap, but would eventually surrender the lead and the win to Kevin J Myers, who started 3rd in the Dash to score the extra bonus points.
In the race, much like the Dash, Dunlap led the field to the green, but was overtaken by Myers on lap 4 for the race lead. Dunlap would get shuffled back with Matt Rolfe from a 5th place starting spot and Ty Spearman from his 7th place starting spot would make up the top 3. A quick early caution bunched up the field, which would cost Rolfe by starting on the outside as Spearman moved around Rolfe for second and went in pursuit of Myers for the race lead shortly after.
As Spearman looked for a way by, Myers would slip up on the exit of turn two on lap 25, allowing Spearman to get the run to the inside to take over the race lead. The race continued under green through the early portions, with Spearman extending his lead to over a second on Myers, Tommy Burns, Michael German and James Linkiewicz who made up the top five before halfway. A caution near midway bunched the field up again, but the race then went under green for about another 20 lap run, with Spearman once again pulling out to a 1-second lead over new second place car Tommy Burns.
With under 25 laps to go, another caution flew, making Spearman lose his second advantage on the field. The race restarted on lap 76, however there would be three more cautions to slow the pace, and Spearman would get out ahead on every restart, including a one-lap dash to the finish, with Spearman getting his best jump yet, to claim a half second victory over Kevin Myers. Spearman led the race’s final 75 laps for his 5th Callaway Investments Sportsman Street Stock victory of the season.
Behind Spearman, in 2nd was Kevin J Myers who led 22 laps early, never ran lower than 4th, and reclaimed 2nd on the final lap. James Linkiewicz was shuffled back early in the race, but ran in the top 5 for the closing stages of the race, and edged Tommy Burns for 3rd at the line. Tommy Burns ran behind Spearman for the entire second half of the race, but slipped two spots on the final restart to a 4th place finish. Hunter Combs started near the rear of the field, and moved into the top five for the first time at halfway, and wound up in 5th place.
Outside the top 5, Darrell Hamlin, who won the series’ last visit to Langley, ran mid-pack for the early stages of the race, but progressed forward to a 6th place finish. Travis Warling nearly cracked the top five early, and overcame a mid-race incident that did not bring out a caution to recover back to a 7th place run. Cody Erdmann started outside the top 10, and ran outside of it for most of the race before moving up to a 8th place finish in the closing stages. Michael German was the first car to miss the Dash, moved up to as high as 3rd in the early part of the race, but fell back to a 9th place run. Matt Rolfe, much like German, ran up front early, as high as 2nd, before being shuffled back outside the top ten but found his way back to a 10th place run.
Tommy Burns lost two spots and possibly crucial points in the championship at the end of the race, but his 4th place run extended his lead to 23 points over Hunter Combs. However, with the win Ty Spearman made up a big chunk of points and now finds himself just 35 points back of the points lead with two races left.
The Callaway Investments Sportsman Street Stock series will continue its Old Dominion Swing for its penultimate race of the season at Martinsville for a 75 lap feature next week.