​Butcher qualified in the 27th position. When the race had its final restart on lap 14, he was in 18th after the pit stops.
The odds never seemed in his favor, but there was no quit in the #90 team. He cracked the top-10 after the first round of green flag pit stops and crept up to 7th after the second. As he caught the lead pack by lap 62, slowly but surely Butcher crept up the leaderboard one-by-one. On lap 69, he led, he pulled out even further, and, thanks to a no-tire pit stop, defeated the field by over three seconds. "We knew there was going to be a sacrifice on time on track, but clearly that set of tires was special," crew chief Mathew Blackburn said. "No point in fixing what ain't broke." With the win, Butcher becomes the second driver in series history to reach three NFRN Elite Cup Series victories, following fellow eliminated driver Rampage who hit the mark at Van Zandt Super Speedway. Butcher won last season at Delaware Speedway and this season at Green Valley Super Speed Ring. The victory in the face of previous elimination, not unlike Grayson Acevedo in the first Season 1 Chase race or Zac Campbell in the Season 1 finale, was a bittersweet feeling, but it gave Butcher a leg up to try and improve on his 12th-place points finish from a season prior. With the amount of NECS Chasers facing off at the front of the field, it appeared that one of the remaining 12 in the playoffs were sure to go to victory lane. nascarfan19 had the pole and kept the lead through the first caution, but a slow pit stop and contact in the second accident sent him back to 26th. Outside polesitter Adam Mundinger went for a spin in the big crash on lap 9 and made further contact on pit road that resulted in a 32nd-place finish. By the time the dust settled, multiple playoff drivers were still in contention. Julio Cesar was the most consistent frontrunner, leading 34 laps and grabbing the bonus point for leading the most laps. William Brock, Bruno de Barros, Jake Baskinger, John Arndt, Jek Porkins, and Amethyst Ashley all had time spent inside the top-10 on green flag runs, with Brock and Arndt both leading at least five laps. Still, they couldn't match the speed of the #90. The race saw early action as Arndt clipped Phillip Fry in the left rear quarter panel exiting the first corner, sending Fry into contact with Dominic Carranza and causing the #78 to deal with damage for the remainder of the race. Craig Martin also made contact with Cesar but both got away without incident. The recently eliminated NFRN Amateur Cup Series playoff competitor Chris Harley ran into the back of NASCOR winner Jett Kraus entering the first turn and would spin into the outside wall, collecting Nick Smith, Eli Bright, and Gerrard Oran. Harley and Oran both exited the event with heavy damage. On the resulting pit stop, Donnie Moore and team chose to go for no tires. While the result was a big gain in spots, the cars that chose to go for four tires were primed to run over the #43. With less than one lap back to green, Porkins caught the back of Moore exiting the final corner and sent him hard into the inside pit wall. He rebounded back into the field, first getting hit by Allyson Rayne and sending other drivers like Ryan Maiden and Mundinger into a spin. Moore and Rayne could not continue in the race. The aggression didn't stop after the green waved for the final time. Mitchell Marc made contact with Dalejrfan8883, sending both up the track into traffic, and an ailing Cody Hagen clipped TheOtherJR. The three- and four-wide racing was a far cry from the NACS race that saw mostly single-file racing deeper in the field. Stephen Willey had an admirable performance in western Wisconsin, scoring a runner-up finish after qualifying 4th. The lowest in points of the full-time drivers, Willey had just scored his first top-10 of the season at NASCOR and managed to score consecutive top-10s for the first time in his career. Martin, who finished 10th in the NACS race in his home state, matched Butcher's aggressive late pit call and went for no tires from about the 15th position, initially holding down 2nd-place before being passed up to ultimately finish 5th. To wrap up the first race of the Round of 12, new points leader Arndt is only 18 points ahead of the cut line, while on the other end, Fry is 13 points below the line. All drivers will remain on edge as the series heads to Ontario Motor Speedway for the second time in series history and the first in the playoffs. Comments are closed.
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