BRS: -FlasH- Sneaks To Victory In Season Opener
- Published ()
- Bellstar Racing Series
After some major restructuring, rescheduling, repainting, and re-"whatever", the Bellstar Racing Series was ready to get a new season underway using NASCAR Racing 2002 Season. This ninth season of racing for the BRS will be their longest one yet at 28 races in length, so it was only appropriate the first race of the season would be at the longest track - Talladega - for the Team Bullitt Dega 300.
This was not an unusual position for -FlasH- to end up in, especially after taking the pole position with a lap of 184.211 mph around the 2.66 mile track. Even with Sierra login problems plaguing the field as they tried to get to the venue, the field was able to start the race with 18 drivers. The field quickly got off to a good start to the season with an opening 20 lap green flag run that saw lots of drafting work being done. This was especially true for a "second" line of about 8 drivers, led by Hogar*PIK-BRS who was hunting down the lead group of about 6 cars. Lap 20 saw the first yellow of the season when Tekoa80 spun out in Turn 3.
Things degenerated a bit for the field after that as the field had some trouble getting themselves sorted out for restarts. Nevertheless, some green flag racing resumed in spurts for the rest of the race as several drivers showed they could run at the front - if they could get up there that is.
Once all was said and done, eleven different drivers would swap the lead 23 times during the race. As the race wound down, several of the top drivers expected to contend for the win were taken out in a turn one incident on lap 97. This wreck took out Kern-BRS, ZXFLY, and Sully**. With ZXFLY and Sully** both hitting the wall hard, the Team Bullitt teammates knew disappointment was looming in one of their sponsored races.
After getting back to green flag racing, the remaining contenders were basically broken into two groups. The lead group consisted of TeeCee, bezio-brs, iggyis, -FlasH-, and sonicphile. A little back was another group consisting of JCauseyFD, B_Helvey, Crash*PIK-BRS and Sandman55. The drivers in each group were racing hard with each other, trying to get setup for their final runs to the checkered flag. Tragedy struck though on lap 109 when TeeCee and bezio-brs got together on the backstretch. This let -FlasH- and sonicphile drive by on their way to the 1-2 finish. Meanwhile, the second group got caught up in the wreck as well. This really jumbled the final finish order a bit as several cars limped around to get the yellow flag.
In an ironic twist, Mention-BRS was able to pull out a sixth place finish after early damage left him off the pace. Showing great determination though, he kept plugging away and took advantage of the situation to get a nice finish.
Overall, the race ended up with a higher caution count than many would have liked. But for a first outing with N2K2 for many of the drivers, it was probably still an improvement of the N4 days in the BRS Outlaw Series. The final award winners for the race included:
- Race Winner: -FlasH-
- Pole Award: -FlasH-
- Frontrunner Award: bezio-brs
- Hardcharger Award: JCauseyFD
- Headache Award: shfty40
The drivers now pack up their haulers and head west for the second race of the season at California.