BLS_F1yer looked to become the first back-to-back winner in the Team VLR Gen 3 series this season, but did not make it to the track in time for qualifying, and would have to show his muscles by trying to win the heat race.

 

With little surprise, the #18 car of VLR_18 took the top spot in qualifying as he matched second place qualifier VLR_Shock's time of 11.70, but had the better total race time and was awarded the pole for his efforts. He debuted his new 2010 Mopar skin this week, and looked to put it in victory lane in it's first ever race.

The drivers hit the track for three heat races with Brookfield, WI. driver VLR_18 winning heat one. VLR_Shock of Crossville, TN. pulled away for a heat two win, and it was another Tennessee driver BLS_Superman, of Dandridge, taking home his first heat win of the season at VLR in the third heat. After the dust had settled on the heat races, two B Mains were held to determine the final four transfer spots into the A Main.

 

It was local favorite BLS_F1yer, of Hickory, NC., finding himself in a B Main once again this week, after winning both the B Main and the A Main last week at Cowtown. He wouldn't be quite as lucky this week, however, as WFO_Jeff made his first appearance of the season at VLR and went on to take the victory in B Main number one.

 

Hagerstown, MD. driver Player43a nearly made his first A Main of the year but came up just short by placing third in his B Main. Newcomer TR93 took B Main #2 over joshow20, with Kentuckian little mann also just missing out on his first A Main of the season.

The starting lineup was set for the feature event, and it was VLR_18 on the pole for the fifty lapper. Since he didn't have the points lead this week - he was tied coming into the race with VLR_JW - he wouldn't have to start sixth for the feature. VLR_Shock lined up second on the grid, with newest BLS member Superman third. Another new BLS member, BLAZE, lined up in fourth, while Spartanburg, SC. native VLR_McGee grabbed fifth in the starting lineup.

 

Southern California driver WFO_SideBite started sixth, with his teammate WFO_Jeff of Lockport, NY. rolling off the grid in seventh. TR93 found himself starting in the eighth spot. BLS_F1 and joshow20 were the two drivers that would round out the field.

The track was extremely dry and slick for the A Main, which lead to a tough racing surface for the drivers. Flagman Jim Colburn waved the green flag to get the main event underway. VLR_18 quickly assumed command of the lead by using the inside to power in front of VLR_Shock in the first corner.

Five laps in the books and VLR_18 and VLR_Shock had already put a little distance on the pack. Everyone had to be wondering if they made the right tire compound even though it was still early in the race. One driver who seemed to have gone with a more liberal tire compound than most of the competitors, was BLS_BLZ. He was sitting in third place five laps into the race, right on the bumper of the top two.

Ten laps down and fourty to go, VLR_18 was out front of his teammate by about two car lengths. The rest of the running order looked like this 3. BLS_BLAZE 4. VLR_McGee 5. BLS_Superman 6. WFO_SideBite 7. BLS_F1yer 8. joshow 9. WFO_Jeff and 10. TR93 who was in a wreck early on.

Just based off looking at who was turning the fastest times, it would seem that the top two drivers must have went with softer tires since they seemed to be pulling away from the rest of the pack, but after the race we would find out that wasn't the case. One driver who took a conservative approach was BLS_Superman, who fell to fifth after starting up in third early on, while showing patients waiting for his tires to come in.

With twenty of the fifty laps completed, the running order hadn't changed much the previous ten laps. Superman had passed VLR_McGee back to take over fourth, and BLS_F1yer steadily continued to move up, as he gained one more spot to take over sixth. joshow and WFO_Jeff were still in a battle that had begun around the green flag, and it was hard to tell who had position on the other in their battle for eighth. Up front, VLR_18 had opened up a five car length lead over Shock, and BLS_BLAZE was sitting comfortable in third place, well ahead of Superman.

Thirty laps were out of the way, and VLR_18 continued to stretch his lead, showing very little signs of tire wear. That wasn't the case for many of the other drivers. BLS_BLAZE, who had been sitting comfortably in third for most of the race, suddenly was being run down from behind by Superman for the position. BLS_F1yer also appeared to go with a safe approach on tires and it was slowly paying off for him as he moved into the top five after starting ninth.

 

VLR_McGee and WFO_SideBite both started a skid towards the back, and WFO_Jeff was gaining on these two. joshow20's tires were going away, too, and he had fallen off of his battle with Jeff and was sitting back in ninth place.

Only eight laps remained in the race that took place on Father's Day, and VLR_18 finally started to show signs of slowing down. However, it didn't seem to matter much as VLR_Shock was only chipping away about half a tenth per lap, and that's not good when someone has a 1.3 second lead with eight laps left.

 

Meanwhile, BLS_Superman got by his teammate BLS_Blaze to take over the third spot when his tries finally came in good for him. Blaze looked to have trouble even making laps at this point with his tires nearly on the rims. 

BLS_F1yer was about nine car lengths behind this battle for third with the field spread out even more behind him. WFO_SideBite, impressive early on, was falling like a rock towards the end. WFO_Jeff had run him down to take over the seventh spot with a handful of laps to go.

The next few laps were uneventful up front. If there were twenty more laps VLR_Shock may have caught the screaming 18 machine, but time was on VLR_18's side on this night as he was able to drive away with a win by 1.25 seconds over Shock, while stretching his points lead ever so slightly in the process. 

"It was a good run for us tonight, we went with a left front soft, and the rest we went with medium soft, and I guess it worked. It started plowing pretty bad with about seven to go, but other than that it was pretty consistent, high 60's and low 70's the whole race. We got out of Shock's draft there and just stayed consistent. I have to thank Mopar for coming on board with us this week, as well as NOS Energy, The US Army, and Team VLR for the racecar," a happy VLR_18 said in victory lane.

Shock wasn't as happy about his run, despite finishing second. "I really thought we could win this thing. When the track gets dry like that we like to try and out smart everyone with our tire choice and obviously we didn't pick the right one tonight. I was just real confident that we were gonna get it done tonight. Second is a good finish, when you lose to the best driver in the game, but I'm kind of regretting not using a little softer compound for this track. I think if the race was a few laps longer we might have looked a little smarter, but you never know how the race is going to turn out when everyone starts battling. Strategy plays a big part on a dry track like this and tonight we messed up the call, but VLR_18 would have been a tough one to beat anyway. It looked like he had super tires on or something, we couldn't do anything with him."

BLS_Superman notched his best career VLR finish by taking home a strong third place run and we caught up with him in his hauler after the race. We asked him what tires he went with for the feature and about his run.

"Well, you know, we're not gonna tell what we ran. I do wish we went with a different compound, though. We had a really good car, but I think we went a little to hard on the right sides. We never really came in to good. I guess it was Blaze up there in front of us for a while, and he definitely had soft tires on. He dropped like a rock and we just went by. I could never catch 18 or Shock up there. Whatever those guys had on I shoulda used that, but I went to hard. Seems like every week I go to hard (on tires). I ran the same compound I ran at Knoxville, and it was just to hard. Next time we'll have to gamble a little bit and go with a little softer tire. I'm worried about losing my tires, that's the thing. We still picked up a great finish, though."

BLS_F1yer picked up the Hard Charger award coming from ninth, but still showed frustration in his voice after the race, despite coming home with a fourth place at his home state track. He sarcastically took a jab at the winner VLR_18 as well.

"I think that VLR_18's a fu*king cheating a*s bast*rd. I think we need to protest him. Anyway, I went with some sh*tty tires, they worked pretty bad. I had all softs on the left and then medium softs on the right. They seemed OK. I think about eight to go they started falling off bad, though. Fourth isn't to damn bad after we missed the qualifying there."

Fifth place was captured by BLS_B1aze, but he didn't stick around for an interview after fading back late in the race. Sixth was captured by VLR_McGee, and he was followed closely by WFO_Jeff in seventh.

WFO_SideBite slid to eighth in the finishing order and talked about his run.

"Our tire selection sucked nuts. My tires were gone. I don't even know what happened. I was just trying to run it and keep out of the way. That's about it, we'll go back home to California this week and maybe try again at Brownstown."

joshow20 ended up with a ninth place finish and TR93 rounded out the top 10.

Next week is VLR's longest race of the season at Brownstown 2k10 for the Jackson Sim 100 on this beautiful new track. We hope to see a good crowd of drivers out for the race, and don't forget the VLR Crates will be there, also. Crates are running 100 laps as well in what will be a grueling race for both the Gen 3 and Crate series. We'll see who will be on top after 100 laps on this 1/4 mile multi-grooved track.

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For more information on the VLR series, visit www.teamvlr.com

Qualifying results: 1. VLR_18 2. VLR_Shock 3. Iceman 4. BLS_Blaze 5. VLR_53 6. WFO_SB 7. joshow20 8. TR93 9. Doit 3 10. WFO_Jeff 11. BLS_Zombie 12. BOB 13. king* 14. kelly 15. Player43A 16. IFRT_34 17. RAC 18. squirrel 19. BLS_F1yer DNQ 20. Do!t 10 DNQ

Top 10 Results of VLR Late Model series Father's Day Showdown 50 (Finishing Position/Start/Driver/Laps Completed): 

1. (1) VLR_18/40

2. (2) VLR_Shock/40

3. (3) BLS_Superman/40

4. (9) BLS_F1yer/40

5. (4) BLS_BLZ/40

6. (5) VLR_McGee/40

7. (7) WFO_Jeff/40

8. (6) WFO_SideBIte/40 

9. (10) Joshow20/40

10. (8) TR93/5

Time of Race: 9 Mins., 49.21 Secs. 

Margin of Victory: 1.25 Secs.

Rookie of the Race: BLS_SuperMan

SuperClean Fast Time Award: VLR_18 11.69

SuperClean Hard Luck Award: TR93