Gabe Sommers has been coming to the World Series of Asphalt at New Smyrna Speedway since 2018 but finally broke through with a statement victory on Opening Night in 2026 in his 29th start in the annual Speedweeks showdown.
Sommers was fastest in final practice on Friday. He qualified seventh but quickly raced his way into the top-5. From there, there were some lucky breaks like a restart on Lap 16 where Spencer Davis and Jade Avedisian came together.
Second.
A dominant, to that point, Derek Kraus had a right front tire go down and was out of the race.
First.
From there, in clean air, Sommers simply drove away from Davis, Max Reaves, Kyle Steckly, Michael Hinde and Ryan Preece behind him. It was a testament to a new look No. 15 team led by crew chief Dave Meyer and mechanic Tucker Miller.
“The first yellow came out and I told my guys, ‘we have a race winning car,’ so that’s a great feeling,” Sommers said. “I got some track position on top of it and man, it will be hard to defend this car tonight.”
It was a gut punch for Kraus who was also chasing his first victory in the World Series of Asphalt.
“Yeah, a pretty big one,” Kraus said. “I just want to thank Carl (Usher) and Butch (VanDoorn) and everyone at VanDoorn Racing to make sure I’m comfortable here. We had a really good piece and I guess we’ll move on tomorrow.”
What exactly happened?
“The brake fan actually rubbed on the tire and then eventually cut it,” Kraus said. “So I actually felt it five or six laps before that. It started to go down a little bit and it got tighter and tighter, went down slowly and not super-fast, which is probably a good thing because we would have had a torn up race car if it did.
“The other good thing is that we have a really good race car for tomorrow night and the ASA race.”
Cory Hall started on the pole due to an inversion and was running second on the first caution when he ran through the Choose V. As it turns out, Hall actually couldn’t hear his radio and wasn’t even aware that he had drawn a black flag.
He pulled behind the wall the following caution with no need to risk tearing up the car before the ASA race on Tuesday.
The most notable incident occurred on that same restart when Avedisian and Davis tangled. Davis and Wilson Motorsports general manager Bond Suss had a chat about it after the race in the inspection area too.
How did he see it?
“Just hard racing, pal,” Davis said. “It happens in Speedweeks. She’s learning. We’re racing for a win. Came up a little bit short tonight. GMS Racing cars are badass.”
As for Avedisian?
“Bond said that he said I chopped him a little bit in Turn 3, but in my opinion, I didn’t,” Avedisian said. “I’ll go back and watch it to make sure but he never really gave me the chance to like race him before I was in the wall. So yeah, I wish I could have raced him and let it play out like a real race, but obviously, that didn’t happen.”
Avedisian faded to seventh by the end with a damaged car.
“My car was really good so thank you to everyone at Wilson, Toyota, Mobil1 and we didn’t make it to the end of the race, and I wish we could have seen where it shook out,” she said. “I like to think we would have had an opportunity to race for the win tonight but we have to make it to the end first and we didn’t.”
The World Series of Asphalt Super Late Model division continues on Saturday night following the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour opener with Gabe Sommers as the points leader.
“We are definitely racing all week for the championship,” he said. “I just need to decide if we want to protect this car before the ASA race on Tuesday.”
SLM World Series of Asphalt Race 1 New Smyrna Speedway February 6 2026
Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.
