Southern National Round 1........FIGHT!!!!
On Friday Sept 9th the Sure Fire Racing League kicked off its Fall Brawl season Track Championship series at Southern National Motorsports Park. The .40 mile oval located in Lucama, NC is one of the newest short tracks available to iRacing drivers. The gates opened for practice at 8:30 EST and when Happy Hour was over the #113 of Charlie Kuzma was on top of the board with a lap of 13.397 with Nicolas Priddy putting his #98 in the runner up spot with a nice lap of 14.445. 2 laps of qualifying followed and Kuzma would claim the pole position with a lap of 13.381 while returning series competitor Jim Whaley Jr would knock the rust off his #46 and place it second on the grid with a 13.464 lap. New rules at SFRL for this series dictate that qualifying results will be inverted for the entire field.
#33 Mark Koschik and #89 Matthew Quick would lead the field to the green flag in the 125 lap event. #85 Trevor Malone quickly assumed the top spot bringing Darryl Tiezzi along with him into the 2nd spot. Out back Kuzma and the #55 of TJ Christ wasted little time in carving their way through the field using cautious aggression to quickly gain spots. On lap 14 Kuzma was able to move around the #85 of Malone and take the point.
The first caution of the night would come out on lap 21 when Matthew Quick would lose control of his machine and spin into the inside wall inflicting heavy damage. The race would restart on lap 28 with Kuzma out front and Christ to his outside. Christ got a great restart and made a move to the inside of the #113 in turn 3 Kuzma gave room- too much room and found himself in the outside wall and collects the #59 of Michael Allen. Both cars would hit pit road for new shoes and repairs.
Christ and Whaley, Jr would show the way on the restart but contact between defending champion Clifton Cockrell and newcomer Priddy would see the #98 go for a spin but not damage. Lap 50 would see early leader Trevor Malone hit the outside wall and get up on 2 wheels. His lost momentum would collect Cockrell and Allen. Both Malone and Allen would retire from this incident.
Whaley would lead the field to green but it did not take long for Kuzma to overpower him for the lead with the help of fresher tires taken after his contact with the wall. From there Whaley would keep him honest but Kuzma would not be denied from taking the season opener. His efforts were made a tad easier when defending Champion Cockrell hit the outside wall on lap #124 and suffered a nasty tumble landing on his roof. The race would end under yellow with the top 5 as follows.
1. #113 Charlie Kuzma
2. #46 Jim Whaley, Jr
3. #55 TJ Christ
4. #22 Eric Nordhoff
5. #98 Nicolas Priddy
