Hampton, Ga. – In STRL’s only broadcast race in the 2008 season Horace Brooks rolled the dice and came up a winner.Electing to stay out during a caution with 30 laps to go Brooks held off the field with 10 lap older tires to get his first win of the Chase. Brooks caught a break when with 2 laps to go the yellow came out. When the yellow came out a hard charging Danny Sanchez was starting to make a move past Brooks but the yellow saved him and he cruised around the last 2 laps behind the STRL pace car. Jeff Sykes who started in second would finish in third followed by Patrick McDaniel in fourth and Ricky Hardin in fifth. Dave Matson won the pole and looked to have the car to beat during the event, but late race pit strategyu put him back in the field and he was never able to recover. Chase points leader Keith Mclain had a rough night as he was caught up in a early wreck and then blew his engine later in the race and finished well back in the standings. The league heads to the short paperclip track in Martinsville next week for some intense short track racing action.
#09 Dave Matson won the pole with a lap of 27.951 narrowly edging the 27.966 by #4 Jeff Sykes.
The green is in the air and Dave Matson leads the 26 car field down into turn 1.
Getting up to speed while coming ouit of turn 2 for the first time.
Early trouble as #55 Steve Stiely spins coming out of turn 4 on cold tires. Also involved in the wreck was the #22 of Keith Mclain, #03 of Jeremy Weideman, and #7 of Michael Spivey.
#96 Brian Mellendorf leads the field after the restart but a fast moving Dana Webster in the #6 Ford is looking for the lead on the low side.
Chase leader Keith Mclain’s bad night gets worse as his engine let’s go.
All but one car heads down pit road.
#0-45 Mike Poe and #27 Michael Jefferies team up on the high side to go past Dana Webster.
2 by 2 by 2 for the lead as #13 Ricky Hardin comes out on top passing #09 Dave Matson.
After a long green flag run #4 Jeff Sykes clears the second pack and sets his sights on the leaders.
3 wide for 6th, 7th, and 8th.
#33 Mike Hall leads the field after a restart.
Mike Poe spins on cold tires and collects #68 Terry Riggins.
Brian Mellendorf spins coming out of turn 4 after some contact with anouther car. #84 Chris Hughson gets collected up in the wreck.
#48 Scott Killmen loops it around after over adjusting for a tight race car. #017 David Preston and #45 Tom Emassie do an outstanding job of avoiding the spinning car of Killmen.
After some bumping and rubbing down the backstretch the #3 of David Gibson ends up nosing into the wall in turn 3. David Preston also gets caught up in the wreck.
#28 Horace Brooks cruise behind the pace car to pick up the win in the Richard Pretty Tribute race.