Brandon “Batman” Martinez added another win to his victory skein, working laboriously up from sixteenth on lap eight to take the lead from Casey Call on lap eighteen then battling him down to the wire. Call collected the runnerup’s share while Joe Marfeo, Shileigh Martinez and Jesse “The Mop” Jakubajtys rounded out the top five.
Brandon started ninth while Mike Marfeo led the field from the pole. Joshua Parsons stayed outside to duel with Marfeo, followed by Matthew Carpenter and Andrew Kun. But Marfeo lost most of his power on the backstretch and was just able to limp to the pits as the field roared past.
Parsons now had the lead and bore into it. By lap four, he had several cars’ lead over Carpenter, Kun, Connor Holderbach and Chris Robbins. Shileigh came around the outside to challenge Kun for fifth, but was deterred as Robbins and Trent Goodrow made contact and spun in turn three, ending Goodrow’s evening prematurely.
On the realignment, Batman received a penalty for jumping the previous start in the pack, setting nim back to twelfth, while Parsons and Carpenter took the front. Holderbach and Kun settled into the second row with Shileigh and Luke LeBrun behind them. Parsons nosed out then took the lead in turn one while Holderbach got under Carpenter and Shileigh then followed. Lap eight saw Jakubajtys coming around high and fast, going from thirteenth to tenth. Parsons was fending off Holderbach, who had Shileigh at his back. Call was closing on her and was suddenly all over her bumper as Parsons went out to a half-straightaway lead. In defense, Shileigh looked under Holderbach to move up to second and escape Call.
But suddenly, Adam Avedisian pulled his car up to the backstretch wall and stopped with fire issuing from under the hood from an apparent engine failure. He was immediately out of the car as the red flag flew and emergency crews converged. Avedisian was unhurt, but his evening was ended prematurely.
The lap 12 restart saw Parsons grab the front once again, while Holderbach, on the high side, had Call dive in underneath. Shileigh, not to be outdone went underneath, creating a three-wide battle for second. Shileigh went to second just as Kun and LeBrun went around on the front stretch.
Parsons had Call on his bumper as they came out of the box, sticking Shileigh on the high side outside Call. But Brandon was now getting under the latter and into second. Shileigh dropped under Call for some door-to-door running. But now, LeBrun and Matt Vallerand became locked together and ground to a halt high on the front stretch. After separating the combatants, the field lined up once again.
Now Parsons had Brandon on his shoulder and Call and Shileigh at his back. Marfeo and Holderbach waited in the wings in row three. Call ducked under Parsons into the lead and Brandon dropped in and followed. He looked under Call but backed out as Parsons settle dinto third ahead of Shileigh and Joe Marfeo.
Lap 17 saw an impatient Brandon Martinez look under call for the lead and they went wheel-to-wheel across the stripe where Brandon took the lead, leaving Call working under Parsons for second. Shilieg and Marfeo were door-to-door behind them.
A final caution flew on lap 20, setting Parsons outside Brandon and Shileigh outside Call behind them.
Brandon grabbed the front, but Call dropped under to steal the lead. Undeterred, Brandon dived under and took it back. Call grabbed his bumper as Marfeo surged into third, ahead of Shileigh and Jakubajtys, who had edged Holderbach out of fifth. Marfeo ran up to Call’s bumper and the lead group consolidated into five cars running nose-to-tail with two laps remaining. They wound it around the bullring twice more to take the checkers with Brandon at the head, followed by Call, Marfeo, Shileigh and Jakubajtys.
Sixth went to Parsons, followed by Carpenter, Jake Matthewson, Brandon Hammann, Holderbach and LeBrun.