Congrats to Norman, and that color scheme is absolutely gorgeous.

Race 8. Rayleigh Speedway. 307 Laps, 399 Miles

Race Summary
    While the season to this point had seen multiple great battles and nail biting races, the visit to Rayleigh would be a bit of a letdown in that department. From the unloading of cars on Friday morning through the checkered flag on Sunday afternoon, passing would be extremely difficult with many drivers complaining that their car simply couldn’t navigate through traffic. The Rayleigh Speedway is the newest track on the schedule, being completed in 2014 and hosting its first major race in 2016, but many feel that it was just poorly designed with its extremely flat turns making passing difficult. As a result, this event would turn into a track position battle, with the majority of passing occurring during pitstops and clean air being king. The most notable example of this would occur after the first round of pitstops. Second place starter Caleb Jordan would jump out front for the first 26 laps, but after a spin by James Chambers, who collected Nick Andrews, brought out the first yellow of the day, William Hayes’ number 18 team would make a two-tire call to jump from 6th in the running order to the lead. Hayes would hold this for the next 74 laps, but was never able to get too far away from Jordan’s number 90. Caleb Jordan quite clearly had the better car, but every time he got within range to make a move, Hayes would jut take away his line and he’d fall off again. Eventually he would use the bumper to move Hayes up the track and work around him, and soon he’d pull back away to a big lead. Hayes, on the other hand, would start to fall like a rock. While passing was difficult, Hayes’ call of two tires did lead to him slipping and sliding a bit more than others, so eventually he couldn’t just take away their line, as he couldn’t hold it. Unfortunately though, this would essentially be it for action. A couple of cautions for small incidents would occur, but nothing major would take place throughout the rest of the event, with the only lead changes taking place during green flag pit stops with Pete Tucker and Tommy Cunningham each inheriting it for a handful of laps. Tucker would continually get close to Jordan's bumper, but never had the opportunity to make the pass he needed and would have to settle for second. But while the race was not exactly notable, the winner would be, as rookie Caleb Jordan would bring home his first career win in dominating fashion, leading 213 of the race’s 307 laps.

Caleb Jordan does burnouts after capturing his first career victory

    After the race, however, several drivers would take to social media to address the lack of passing:



    When asked his opinions about the passing in his post-race media session, race winner Caleb Jordan was, understandably, mixed in his opinions:
“I think today was great, but then again, I do have a trophy with my name on it that may be causing some bias. Those complaints are from James [Norman], right? He’s just jealous I led more laps today than he has all season [laughs]. No, but seriously, I do think we had a big issue with passing today. Hell, a car that couldn’t even hold on to a top ten spot held us off for more than 70 laps on two tires, so yeah, it was hard to make moves. Obviously as a driver it would be nice to have a viable second groove to make passes, but sometimes that’s how things go. I can’t complain though, I’m going home with this thing [holds up trophy].”

Results:
1. 90, Caleb Jordan
2. 00, Pete Tucker
3. 52, Stan Gordon
4. 0, Tommy Cunningham
5. 01, Jared Tyler
6. 45, Clay Harris
7. 1, Johnny Jennings
8. 91, Tony Clark
9. 80, Natalie Reid
10. 7, Marshall Thorton
11. 16, Tom Johnston
12. 18, William Hayes
13. 99, Denny Bryan
14. 9, Thomas Copland
15. 10 Seth Nichols
16. 60, Carlton Clark
17. 8, James Norman
18. 40, Greg Peterson
19. 71, Keller Burns
20. 55, Lucas Morris
21. 15, Darren Cannon
22. 22, Corey Mason
23. 13, Lance Williams
24. 20, Jason Faulk
25. 5, Ray Kelly
26. 31, Ross Gill
27. 08, James Chambers
28. 21, Nick Andrews
29. 34, Taylor Patterson

Lap Leaders: C Jordan (213), W Hayes (74), P Tucker (14), T Cunningham (6)

Points:

Up Next: We turn right! The series heads to the road course at Road Alcada. For several drivers, this will be their first time on a road course as the NSCa hadn't featured a road course on its schedule since the 1970s, therefore the drivers who focused entirely on that series never got a chance to drive one. Until then though, thanks to all for reading and I hope you stop by again for more!

NASCAR looks fantastic! I love the write ups and the story is really good!