BIG JOE TAKES HOME HIS FIRST WIN AT HOMESTEAD

Tonight Lionheart went south to Homestead- Miami Speedway. 84 laps was the distance. We had some long runs at the start and at the end, with some mess in the middle. 

Matt Kingsbury would take the pole with a 25.605 with Tony Lurcock and Joe Hassert rounding out the top 3. Matt and Joe would trade the lead back and forth until the first caution came out on lap 6 when Krista Nelson got rear ended by Peter Ramberg. 6 cars would stay out and Joe and Matt led the field back to green.

Joe and Matt would continue to swap for P1 and we got a good green flag run here. The field strung out and cars would stay single file for most of the green flag run. Matt took the lead by 2.6 seconds after a few flip flops with Joe, while Tony settled into 3rd. Matt gave up the lead needing green flag pit stops a few laps early since him and the leaders did not stop under yellow. Cars that pit on lap 6 would cycle to the front and  Disaster struck on lap 36 when he missed pit road sliding up the track and collecting multiple cars.

The cars that were leading and pit got caught a lap down and would have to take a wave around putting Matt in 19th with Joe and Tony behind. Rick Music won the race off pit road and took the lead followed by Justin Laxton and Jesse Vincent.

Justin was able to take the lead on lap 43 over Rick and Jesse and Dan Geren would fight for 3rd. Yellow came out on lap 45 when Carl Burk slowed and got turned into the wall by Jack Bogan. Justin would lead the field into the pits with Jesse staying out and taking over the lead with Korey Connor and Jorge Anzaldo rounding out the top 3. On the restart Krista would come down into Pierre Daigle bringing out another caution also collecting Trevor Malone and Danno Brookins. Joe would make his final pit stop giving up 7th dropping to 13th which would help his cause later. 

Jesse would take the green once more with Korey and Ian Adams in tow. Caution struck this time in turn 1 on the restart when Jack Bogan came down the track into Justin collecting a few more cars. This time Jesse would take the leaders down pit road, while Vincent Bluthenthal would stay out and try to stretch his fuel taking the lead with Chris Poole in 2nd and Joe working his way back to 3rd. 

Vincent would lead the field back to green while Joe was able to get around Chris quickly and the final caution would fly when Dennis Nichol tried to make 3 wide work getting involved with Jesse and Korey. Vincent and Joe stayed out once more with the lapped car of Ray Kingsbury separating the two leaders. 

Vincent led the field back green and Joe was able to pass for the lead when Ray passed Vincent and then was able to put Ray in his rear view and was able to gain separation with Ray behind him. Vincent had to pull off the track to pit as he was running out of fuel and Joe started to run away for the victory. Matt was able to run through the field making it 3 wide on lap 80 completing the pass on Chris to take over 2nd and Joe would take the checkers winning by 1.7 seconds with Matt in 2nd and Bradley Walters 3rd.

Jesse Vincent would keep the championship lead with Rick closing the gap to 34 points followed by Trevor. Matt and Joe are able to crack the top 5.