ELKIN, N.C. – Greg Smyre led from wire to wire at Friendship Motor Speedway to capture the victory in Saturday night’s season-ending race for the Carolina No Bull Sprint Series.
After a six inversion put him on the pole for the 30-lap feature, Smyre rocketed away from the field in his No. 21k Tony Ave Racing machine and never looked back, beating out veteran Steve Surniak for a $2,000 payday at the tight, four-tenths-mile bullring.
The Hickory, N.C. driver took the checkered flag in front by .148 of a second, after slower traffic in the final laps allowed Surniak to close within striking distance.
“We got lucky there and the invert worked in our favor, for once,” noted Smyre. “We haven’t had much luck with that lately. I knew he was getting close there at the end; I was just trying not to get in that lap traffic mess, because once we started intermingling I knew it could get interesting.
“I figured it’d be hard for him to get around me once I cleared Jay (Deming) and that was a bit of the difference,” he added. “Tony Grams has been a great help to me; he’s been with me a couple years now and we’ve really worked well together. We’re on the right track now and we’re looking forward to next season.”
Smyre had to weather two restarts – including a complete double-file restart after an incident after the initial green flag – en route to his second CNBS win in a row.
As the field entered turn one on the first lap, fourth-starting Johnny Kolosek washed up and spun his No. 26j in the middle of the corner. In the process, he collected Jake Karklin, who clinched the series title just by starting Saturday night’s feature.
Contact between the pair, occurring when Karklin clipped Kolosek as he tried to slip past the accident, ended both their nights and relegated them to 11th (Kolosek) and 12th (Karklin) in the final rundown.
The next start did nothing to slow Smyre’s roll, as the hometown favorite took off when the green flag waved again and opened up a three-quarter second advantage within two laps as Surniak and 14-year-old Connor Leoffler trailed behind.
Outgoing CNBS champion Jake McLain finally wrested the third spot away from Leoffler with a turn-two slide job on lap seven, before a caution flag three laps later for a spinning Bobby Komisarski bunched the field up once more.
That was of no consequence to Smyre, who took off again on the final restart of the night and opened up a second and a half over the field by the halfway point. However, traffic and dirty air would begin to play factors in the finish, and Surniak cut Smyre’s lead down under a second by the seven to go mark.
The lead further narrowed as Smyre got hung up behind the slowing car of Jay Deming inside of five to go, but Smyre was finally able to clear Deming coming to the two to go mark and the die was cast.
Though Surniak tried a last-ditch dive to close on Smyre’s bumper in the final two corners, he didn’t have enough to get to the inside of the No. 21k and had to settle for second.
“I think if we’d had one more lap, I might have been able to get him,” admitted Surniak. “He was being a little cautious in lap traffic and got in everyone’s dirty air … that’s what it’s all about, though. I could only stay so close behind him, because I didn’t want to use my stuff up, and we weren’t quite close enough.”
McLain completed the podium, followed by Leoffler and Nick Tucker.
Johnny Bridges, who led the points coming into the final night of the season, did not compete at Friendship due to being out of the country.
The finish:
Greg Smyre, Steve Surniak, Jake McLain, Connor Leoffler, Nick Tucker, Frankie Peters, Jason Troutman, Bobby Komisarski, Jay Deming, Anthony Linkenhoker, Johnny Kolosek, Jake Karklin, Mark Lowrey.
