X-1R Pro Cup Series: Clay Rogers’ Fifth Win Of The Season

Clay Rogers sure showed them at the beginning of October in Southern National Motorsports Park. From third place, he managed to race his way to the first over the last 25 laps, on the high side no less. He nudged fellow veteran, Caleb Holman, into second place. Rogers said, while in Edlebrock Victory Lane, “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. 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.” Tyler Young, third place finisher, lead the field to green after blistering the field in MAHLE qualifying. Several drivers ran out of luck early in the race: 2 time NASCAR National Weekly Series champion, Lee Pulliam, missed a shift causing the field to stack up. The machines that took the brunt of it were Pooler’s, Georgia’s Andrew Smith’s and the #1 machine of Dalton Hopkins’, which suffered extensive front end damages. The yellow flag flew when oil from Pulliam’s #41 machine covered the racing surface. His machine had already fallen several places before the field slowed and his Top Gun Motorsports team had to make repairs to a bent rear end line, as a result of the missed shift, while the field went back to green flag racing. At the halfway point on lap 100, there were some breath-holding moments. Rookie Eric Gerchak started shotgun due to unapproved adjustments to his #21 LKN Cash for Gold Chevy by his team after qualifying. Still, he made his way to fifth place about the same time when Rogers overtook Tyler Young for lead and earned 5 bonus points for leading a lap and 5 more for winning the Roush-Yates Performance Products Halfway Leader Award. With the field starting straight up in the championship series, the first 18 circuits was dominated by Rogers but Young gained the advantage after a restart on 119 because of a debris caution. Holman, who had bounced between the third and fourth positions for most of the race, also passed Rogers to advance to second position and chased Young for the lead. It wasn’t long before Holman passed Young inside 50 laps to gain a substantial lead of 2 car length.

Clay Rogers celebrating on victory lane image:carsprocup.com Meanwhile, the battles for fourth until eighth positions began to draw attention. Rookie Gerchak, local driver Clay Jones, and sophomore driver Gus Dean were battling each other. Jones and Dean appeared to leave Gerchak behind as the race progressed and eyed Rogers' third position. However, a move to the high groove on lap 179 brought sudden life to Lamb & Robinson machine driven by Rogers for the first time that night. Fans were thrilled when Rogers finally creeped up on Holman in just 9 laps, eliminating the 1.7 second gap that Holman had required 40 circuits to build. Holman tried to slow his rival down but failed, and Rogers emerged with his first win at Southern National and the fifth win of the season.   For more information on the X-1R Pro Cup Series visit www.carsprocup.com.  Official Results: #16 Clay Rogers  #75 Caleb Holman  #02 Tyler Young  #67 Clay Jones  #56 Gus Dean  #21 Eric Gerchak  #33 Ryan Heavner  #2 Brady Boswell  #62 Andrew Smith  #23 JP Morgan  #1 Dalton Hopkins  #41 Lee Pulliam  #17 Stacy Puryear