2018 SRD Truck Series - Race 12 - Homestead Miami

Today we head to the 1.5 mile Homestead-Miami Speedway for the finale of the 2018 SRD Truck Series campaign! We entered this season with 28 contenders, today we are down to four to battle it out for the title. Lets introduce our Championship Four!

Mike Ehresman*:
3 Wins
4 Top Fives
5 Top Tens
0 DNFs
1 Pole
109 Laps Led

Matheus Fiorentini*:
1 Win
5 Top Fives
8 Top Tens
0 DNFs
0 Poles
9 Laps Led

J.R. Franklin*:
1 Win
3 Top Fives
7 Top Tens
2 DNFs
1 Pole
122 Laps Led

Sean English:
1 Win
1 Top Five
3 Top Tens
2 DNFs
0 Poles
28 Laps Led
*: Rookie Bold: Best among contenders

Last Week: After winning at Las Vegas a couple weeks to late to make the playoffs, rookie Dominik Karda captured the pole at Watkins Glen looking for victory number two on the season. Karda would start out strong building an early lead until Lap 7, Karda pops the outside retaining wall coming out of the final corner opening the door to Joshua Hawkins and Jesse Dalton, both of whom get past the 21. Lap 9, contact between championship contenders of Fiorentini and Ehresman! Had this gone any more wrong and we may not be seeing them run for the title today. Ehresman would be able to recover quickly enough to win the opening stage. Mike Ehresman would go on to have a very strong second half of the race, looking like he would earn win number four on the season... Not if Matheus Fiorentini had anything to say about it! Five laps to go Fiorentini dives below Ehresman's 92 heading into turn one to secure the lead and he would never look back scoring the rookie's first career SRD Truck victory and locking him into the Championship Four this week.

Race Info:
Race length: 94 laps, 141 miles
Stage 1: 47 laps
Stage 2: 47 laps

PAST POLESITTERS/WINNERS:
2016: John Hooper, Sr. (30.812)/ Victor Souza

 

@BrendonH12: “Ready for one last shot at a win here for @MWick4 and MWM. Good luck to the Final Four @mje33 @matheus357 @J.R.Franklin @Saan Anguish!

 

Fiorentini Wins Practice, Other Contenders Outside Top 15:



English Motorsports Starting 1-2:

 

Hate to do this again, but it happens.. Race postponed to tomorrow night, 9 PM EST.

 

Fiorentini: "Things looked great for us until we screwed up qualifying. Hard to do great things starting from 21st while one of your fellow title contenders is sitting on the pole. Still, I believe in this team. They've been behind me all season long, pushing me forward, giving their best for us to have a shot at the title, and here we are now. Races often get messy, and nobody is safe from either suffering a problem or getting involved in an incident. It can happen to literally anyone on track. We'll do our best to put the best truck possible on track tomorrow and show those guys that we didn't come this far only to fail miserably, staying away from any chaos that may unfold."

"We'll. Not. Fail."

 

"First of all, best of luck for the 4 Championship contenders, may the best driver win here at Homestead. Starting 8th to close out the season is obviously a great start for the weekend for the team, but once again we're hoping that we've got ourselves some good race pace, as our practice session is kinda worrisome. We only got 26th on practice and that doesn't look promising if that's the pace that the Precure Silverado will run in the race..."

 

The command has been given, engines have been fired. English Motorsports teammates Sean English and Alex Miller are preparing to lead us off pit road.


Reminder where the Championship Four are starting:
1. Sean English
9. Mike Ehresman
21. Matheus Fiorentini
22. J.R. Franklin

 

Lap One: Pace car is off, we are green for the final time in the 2018 season! Sean English sails off into turn one, he will clear his teammate Miller who hangs tough up high.

 

Lap Two: Alex Miller looks low on English but he is unsuccessful. He now falls to the clutches of John Hooper Sr, who will take over the second position. This is likely to be John’s final appearance in the SRD Truck Series as he will retire from all three stock car leagues at season’s end to focus primarily on open wheel racing.

 

Lap Four: After starting ninth, Mike Ehresman has dropped all the way back to the 14th position and he looks to continue to fall back as Carter Friesen is going to get by him and take the position. J.R. Franklin and Matheus Fiorentini still lag back in 19th and 22nd.

 

Lap 5 (LEAD CHANGE): Sean English makes contact with the outside wall on exit of turn four allowing Alex Miller to get by with ease. Reza Maulana now challenges on the bottom but won’t be able to clear Miller off of two.

 

Lap 8: J.R. Franklin is now challenging Mike Ehresman for the 16th position. Other than English in third, the other three contenders haven’t been able to come on so far.

Championship Four:
3. English
16. Ehresman
17. Franklin
19. Fiorentini

 

Lap 10: Maulana will get loose off of turn two and will lose the spot to Ray Tustin with Matt Wichelman following close behind.

 

Lap 12: Jesse Dalton is going to make it three-wide into turn one to jump from sixth to fourth.

Championship Four:
5. English
14. Franklin
17. Ehresman
21. Fiorentini

 

Lap 14: Dalton now goes to the bottom again to move up to the second spot just behind Alex Miller.

 

Lap 15 (LEAD CHANGE): Jesse Dalton will get the run off of four to get the lead at the line. J.R. Franklin continues his slow creep to the front, he now runs 11th.

Championship Four:
5. English
11. Franklin
18. Ehresman
21. Fiorentini

 

Lap 19: As the pack begins to spread out the lead group continues to duke it out. Dalton and Miller have been fighting for the lead for almost five laps now. J.R. Franklin has just wheeled his truck past John Hooper Sr. for the tenth spot, he now looks to Ben Althen for ninth.

 

Lap 21: Reza Maulana just rode the wall through turns three and four dropping him from the third position back to about eighth, he’s running next to Matt Wichelman right now. Maulana just signed a deal earlier this week to join Wichelman and OPP, Inc. for his first full-time campaign in the NNS Series for 2019.

 

Lap 22: These two continue to battle it out, neither driver wanting to yield to the other. Ray Tustin is just sitting back in third place waiting for one of them to make a mistake so he can strike.

Championship Four:
4. English
8. Franklin
18. Ehresman
23. Fiorentini

 

Lap 24: One guy who has been running very steadily in the top ten so far today is Noah Joyce currently up in fourth. Hopefully we didn’t just jinx him, it seems every time we bring him up in a race he runs into trouble shortly thereafter. Jason Branford currently running eighth has also been solidly in the top ten for the first quarter of this race.