9/1/2019: The kickoff to the Labor Day Shootout could not have gotten off to a better start. After rounds of heats, qualifiers and B-Mains, we would see the best 26 cars line up for the $1K prize at Lanco last night. Passing points would set the lineup for the feature in which we saw Jarid Kunkle top passing points to start on the pole, alongside Zach Light. The passing points systems is the ultimate equalizer as we saw some new names start up front while names like Alex Bright, Jason Swavely and Damon Paul start towards the latter half of the field.
Kunkle would take the early and would show early on that he was the car to beat. Behind him Jesse Maurer would quickly move into 2nd and Aaron Bollinger would move into the top 5 from the 9th starting position. After a few hiccups to get the race started, the race went relatively caution free which presented the obstacle of
lapped traffic for the leaders. Maurer and Bollinger would track Kunkle in lapped traffic as the field was mostly all running on the top. Then around half way, Maurer found something on the bottom of the track and would go side by side with Kunkle for the lead. Maurer would take the lead and Bollinger would try to come through as well but the caution would come out. In the mid pack we saw some impressive hard charges from Jason Swavely, Alex Bright and TJ Greve and it would be interesting to see if they could make a run with 6 laps to go after the final caution. When the green flag dropped, Maurer would stick to that bottom line and pull away from the field to take the win over Kunkle, Bollinger, Swavely and Austin Quick.
Outside of Lanco, we saw Dan Souder and Tommy Kunsman grab wins at GVAT. Both drivers would come from the 2nd row to take victories in their respective divisions. At Path Valley, neither Alec Quiggle or Hayden Miller would make it to victory but it was actually Jim Young picking up another victory on the year over Quiggle. Miller would finish 4th but that means Quiggle was able to extend his points lead a little bit more. In a special event out at Lernersville, Garrett Bard possibly had the most dominant performance of the 2019 season as he won by almost 10 seconds for his division leading 12th victory.