Welcome to the Action Track
Terre Haute the Action Track , 33 Sprint Cars from USAC and the Amsoils Indiana Sprint Week parked into the pit area in preparation for night 4 of the series .When you are on you are on and that was so true as Kevin Thomas ran to his third successive Sprint Week victory. Terre Haute was the sixth win of the season for the Cullman, Alabama driver in the Mike Dutcher/RW/Tri-Star Motorsports – Black Jack Oil Company #17RW Maxim/Fisher.
Thomas started the night from position 5 and had muscled his way to the front before the opening lap had been complete.
The Don Smith Classic ran 26 laps under green with Thomas leading comfortably over Brady Bacon, Dave Darland and Jerry Coons, Jr.
Jerry Coon Jr run of bad luck continued and he retired from the race just as Bacon started to close in on the leader Thomas. Both Thomas and Bacon were running the top. Entering the traffic was the signal for both Bacon and Darland to close in on Thomas.
Robert Ballou was on the move into the top-five, and ProSource “Fast Qualifier” Jon Stanbrough was recovering from an early backslide from sixth to as low as 12th.
Dave Darland and Robert Ballou both had their eyes fixed firmly on the rear of Thomas Mike Dutcher/RW/Tri-Star Motorsports – Black Jack Oil Company #17RW Maxim/Fisher and started to attack and look for the lead. A caution with 4 to go halted the charge of Bacon and Darland and they settled back to wait on the restart.
The green was out and Darland immediately disposed of Ballou and set up Thomas on lap 28 with a passing slide. Thomas was not done and retook the lead coming off turn two. The field is shown the white flag on lap to go as Darland makes one last dive for the lead in turn one, sadly Darland could not hold the move and the Phillip 6 spun backwards into the wall.
The Darland incident forced another restart and this time it was Ballou who applied the pressure but like Darland his moves failed when he jumped the cushion in turn two allowing both Stanbrough Marion Underground Construction – Shane Wade Enterprises #66 DRC/Dynotech and Bacon in his Hoffman Auto Racing – Mean Green #69 Triple X/Stanton Mopar to move into the podium positions.
Kevin Thomas wins at Terre Haute
Driver quotes
Kevin Thomas“I never would have guessed that I’d get a feature win here, but I had to drive my ass off for that one. I just knew a big one was coming from Darland on that last lap, and I guess he got in the wall. This thing was hooked right from the start. We got a great start on the bottom and moved up top with the lead. I really thought I was gonna throw it away, messing up in three and four and almost tagged the wall. It was tough getting through traffic, and that slowed me up a lot. We got lucky to get that caution with four to go, and I just had to be smart those last couple laps,” Thomas said.
Jon Stanbrough“We were just too tight early, shooting for the end of the race, and the track was just a little too good early. Our goal was to be a little too tight at the beginning but not lose sight of the leaders, and they were gone in a hurry. We were fortunate for the late caution to help us. I coulda used a caution a little earlier in the race; it was good at the end, obviously. I’m a little disappointed with second, just as I or anyone who wants to win is, but I guess we should be pretty happy to get back to second,” Stanbrough said.
Brady Bacon“I was probably just a little too cautious with him in the beginning. Just a couple little mistakes by me probably kept us from winning. These last two races are a big improvement for us, so hopefully we can just put it all together and me not mess up so we can win one,” Bacon said.
FIRST HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Taylor, 2. Ballou, 3. Stanbrough, 4. Short, 5. Windom, 6. Bell, 7. Armstrong, 8. Bernal. NT
SECOND HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Cottle, 2. Schuerenberg, 3. McIntyre, 4. Leary, 5. Coons, 6. Hayden, 7. Smith, 8. Moore. 2:49.16
THIRD HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Thomas, 2. Clauson, 3. Stockon, 4. Courtney, 5. Shuman, 6. Mattox, 7. Gabbard, 8. Grant, NT
FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Darland, 2. Hines, 3. Bacon, 4. Simmons, 5. Gross, 6. Jarrett, 7. Drake, 8. Chambers. 2:48.82
SEMI: (12 laps) 1. Coons, 2. Bell, 3. Windom, 4. Shuman, 5. Bernal, 6. Rose, 7. Hayden, 8. Armstrong, 9. Jarrett, 10. Drake, 11. Gabbard, 12. Chambers, 13. Smith, 14. Gross, 15. Mattox. NT
Stands starting to fill at Terre Haute “The Action Track”
FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr., 2. Jon Stanbrough, 3. Brady Bacon, 4. Robert Ballou, 5. Chase Stockon, 6. Hunter Schuerenberg, 7. Brady Short, 8. Wes McIntyre, 9. Chris Windom, 10. Shane Cottle, 11. Christopher Bell, 12. Bryan Clauson, 13. Ryan Bernal, 14. C.J. Leary, 15. Bill Rose, 16. Tyler Courtney, 17. Dave Darland, 18. Gary Taylor, 19. Jerry Coons Jr., 20. Casey Shuman, 21. Jake Simmons, 22. Tracy Hines, 23. Justin Grant. NT
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**Grant flipped during the third heat.
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-30 Thomas.
NEW AMSOIL NATIONAL SPRINT POINTS: 1-Darland-1,028, 2-Thomas-992, 3-Clauson-970, 4-Bacon-935, 5-Schuerenberg-912, 6-Stockon-899, 7-Hines-820, 8-Ballou-817, 9-Cottle-663, 10-Windom-604.
NEW INDIANA SPRINT WEEK POINTS: 1-Thomas-238, 2-Darland-224, 3-Stanbrough-211, 4-Cottle-198, 5-Bacon-197, 6-McIntyre-186, 7-Schuerenberg-184, 8-Bell-183, 9-Clauson-181, 10-Stockon-155.
NEXT AMSOIL NATIONAL SPRINT RACE: July 18 – Putnamville, Indiana – Lincoln Park Speedway – “Indiana Sprintweek”
