Jerry Coons Jr and Stanton Toyota win night three Chili Bowl
Jerry Coons wins at the Chili Bowl
Pic credit Patrick Grant
USAC journey man Jerry Coons Jr worked his Wile-Pak Stanton SR11 Toyota to a treat as he wheeled to the win in the John Christner Preliminary Feature over Andrew Deal and Kevin Swindell
On paper this Feature appeared to be the strongest so far on Bowl schedule featuring 4 times winner Kevin Swindell 2005 Champion Tracey Hines and 2013 USAC Midget Champ Bell.Both Bell and Swindell had trouble during the night and had to fight through the Bs to gain their transfer into the A Feature. Both won their B Features.
Danny Stratton and Andrew Deal would lead the field to the green but lap 1 in turn 2 the race would come to abrupt stop with 10 cars colliding , massive pile up. Both Bell and Swindell were in the middle of it.
Lap 1 pile up Chili Bowl
Pic credit Tee-Jay Crawford
Stratton took the race lead from the restart but by lap 4 Andrew Deal had worked his way past Stratton. Deal would only hold the point till lap 7 before Coons took his Wilke-Pak Stanton into the race lead. Coons had been working the cushion showing all of his 12 years of Chili Bowl Championship experience.
Coons and Deal had consolidated their positions but there were still lots of action to come as only the top three would transfer to the Championship Final.
The final race caution would come out on lap 14 for Tracey Hines. Hines was running in the final transfer position when yellow Toyota climbed the fence in the front straight and his transfer spot was gone.
When they passed the cone for the final restart Coons and Deal again took control of their positions and the remaining attention was focused on the charge coming from Swindell and Bell. Lap 24 of 25 and Swindell finally gets by Ryan Bernall to grab that important final transfer spot. Bell would cross in 5th and has some work ahead of him the make the Championship Final.
Swindell and Bell ready for the John Christner Trucking Preliminary Final
Jerry Coons Jr wins the John Christner Trucking Preliminary by 2,220 seconds over Andrew Deal and Kevin Swindell
Jerry Coons Jr post race “”We had 60-70 cars here tonight and some of the top drivers. In any preliminary night, it’s hard enough to run in the top-three, certainly hard enough to win. Everything has got to go your way, which it did tonight. From our Heat, to our Qualifier, everything went right,” commented Coons on the win. “The reason we celebrate pretty good on preliminary nights is because it’s still a big win.”
Kevin Swindell post race “”I was able to get around the bottom pretty good. I think most of the guys couldn’t and didn’t really try,” said Swindell when asked about his run from the back. “I had the seas part a couple of times to get a few of them and I guess I had to really work past Bernal at the end.
A-Feature: Top 3 advance to Saturday’s A-Feature.
A Feature (25 Laps): 1. 5-Jerry Coons Jr[3]; 2. 15D-Andrew Deal[2]; 3. 39-Kevin Swindell[18]; 4. 2B-Ryan Bernal[5]; 5. 71-Christopher Bell[17]; 6. 47-Danny Stratton[1]; 7. 5X-Justin Peck[19]; 8. 26-Shane Golobic[7]; 9. 37-Seth Bergman[8]; 10. 91K-Kevin Bayer[14]; 11. 19W-Matt Streeter[6]; 12. 17-Ricky Stenhouse Jr[23]; 13. 10V-Richard VanderWeerd[20]; 14. 8H-Harli White[24]; 15. 22E-Mike Goodman[16]; 16. 57C-Chad Boespflug[9]; 17. 24-Tracy Hines[4]; 18. 19S-Patrick Stasa[12]; 19. 2A-C.J. Leary[11]; 20. 17M-Michael Koontz[10]; 21. 17W-Cole Wood[22]; 22. (DNF) 73D-David Gravel[15]; 23. (DNF) 50-Daniel Adler[13]; 24. (DNF) 33-Davey Ray[21]
Lap Leader(s): Danny Stratton 1-3; Andrew Deal 4-6; Jerry Coons, Jr. 7-25;
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December issue
