Clay Rogers celebrates in victory lane after winning Saturday night’s X-1R Pro Cup Series feature at Southern National Motorsports Park. Photo by Brian Metski
There’s not much of a reputation of a “high side” racing groove at Southern National Motorsports Park located just outside Lucama, NC in Eastern NC.
Saturday night in front of a healthy crowd four time series champion and current championship points leader Clay Rogers showed those in attendance, and especially his fellow competitors, that you can race on the high side at Southern National. Rogers went from third to first over the final 25 laps on the high side of the race track to steal the win from fellow veteran Caleb Holman who looked to be on his way to victory lane once again.
“This place has been one of the worst tracks for me my entire career so be standing here in victory lane right now is pretty special,” said Rogers. “I’ve won a lot of races in this series and sometimes certain ones just standout to you for personal reasons; this one right here is one of them.”
Eventual third place finisher Tyler Young led the field to green after blistering the field in MAHLE qualifying. The initial start of the race proved to be a costly one for several drivers, when two time NASCAR National Weekly Series champion Lee Pulliam, making his series debut, missed a shift causing the field to stack up. Pooler, GA’s Andrew Smith and Dalton Hopkins got the worst of it as both machines received extensive front end damage.
The yellow would fly once again due to oil on the racing surface. The oil was found to be coming from Pulliam’s machine, which had fallen several positions just before the field slowed. The consequences of Pulliam’s missed shift bent a rear end line forcing his Top Gun Motorsports team to make repairs as the field went back to green flag racing.
The 52 lap run to the competition caution at the event’s halfway point on lap 100 produced some intense moments. Rookie Eric Gerchak was the man on the move after starting shotgun on the field due to his team making unapproved adjustments to his Chevy after qualifying. Gerchak advanced up the fifth place position about the same time Rogers made his move by Tyler Young for the lead position to earn five bonus points for leading a lap and five more for winning the Roush-Yates Performance Products Halfway Leader Award.
With the field starting straight up in the championship series Rogers held on to the lead for initial eighteen circuits before Tyler Young took advantage of a lap 119 restart following a caution for debris. Caleb Holman, who had stay in the third and fourth positions for much of the night, then followed suit passing Rogers for second and setting his sights on Young for the lead. Holman wasted no time making his presence known passing Young inside 50 laps to go and opening a two car length lead.
With Holman out in front with a sizable lead, the battles for fourth all the way down to eighth were where the action began to take over. Rookie Gerchak, local driver Clay Jones, and sophomore driver Gus Dean mixed things up for top five finishes. Jones and Dean proved to be better than Gerchak as laps wound down. The two moved around Gerchak and started pushing for Rogers in third, but a move to the high groove on lap 179 brought life to Rogers’ Lamb & Robinson machine that was unseen all night.
With speedy dry dust flying, Clay Rogers put a show on that the fans at Southern National visibly enjoyed. Rogers’ move erased a 1.7 second gap in just nine laps that Holman had built up over the field in the course of forty circuits. Holman did all he could to slow the momentum of Rogers but the Mooresville, NC driver proved too much for his competition picking up his fifth win of the season and the first of his career at Southern National.
The win mixed with the struggles of JP Morgan’s ill handling racecar was the perfect recipe for Rogers to open up a ninety-six point lead as the series heads to round three of the championship series this Saturday night, October 5, at Anderson Motor Speedway in Anderson, SC. For more information on the X-1R Pro Cup Series visit carsprocup.com.
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X-1R Pro Cup Series
Southern National Motorsports Park-Lucama, NC
Golden Leaf 200 – Sept. 28, 2013
1. #16 Clay Rogers
2. #75 Caleb Holman
3. #02 Tyler Young
4. #67 Clay Jones
5. #56 Gus Dean
6. #21 Eric Gerchak
7. #33 Ryan Heavner
8. #2 Brady Boswell
9. #62 Andrew Smith
10. #23 J.P. Morgan
11. #1 Dalton Hopkins
12. #41 Lee Pulliam
13. #17 Stacy Puryear
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