Canyon Park Speedway – Peoria in Arizona opened their pits to 30 of USACs best for race 38 in the USAC/AMSOIL Sprint Car Championship. The main interest was the battle for the Championship between Bryan Clauson and Dave Darland.

Points in any race are hard to gain and much more difficult to protect. Clauson in his Stewart/Curb-Agajanian/Chev Performance started the warm up with the barest of margin, 13 points ahead of Dave Darland and his Phillips Motorsports.

Clauson started his point’s defense in the strongest possible manner when he posted the fastest time during qualifying to gain an early gain over Darland. Dave Darland responded quickly by covering Clauson points advantage with a solid win in heat 3.

Brady Bacon leads the field for the first 20 laps before shredding a tyre and handing the lead to Dave Darland. Both Darland and Clauson had race in full view of each other.

Race caution and the following restarts were not kind to Darland and after keeping the Phillip Motorsports number 71 ahead of Clauson successive restarts saw the Phillips Motorsports entry loose position first to Tracey Hines in the Carolina Nut Company – Hansen’s Welding #4 DRC/Stanton Mopar.

With Clauson out front controlling the race more points loss for Darland was coming when with a couple of laps remaining he bobbled in the cushion off turn-four allowing Spencer and Kevin Thomas, Jr. to dart by and wage a battle for the final podium position. Spencer nailed down the final set of corners on the cushion to claim third in the Madera Produce – Grubstake Mini Storage #50 Maxim/Shaver.

Clauson greeted the checker first  and gained a big points haul over Darland who had to settle for 6^th place and ended the night 29 points adrift of the defending USAC/AMSOIL Champion as they head into  night two and  the “Hall of Fame Classic “ at Canyon Park Speedway.

Driver quotes

Bryan Clauson “I was fortunate to get a restart at the right time there and make the bottom work to get to the lead, and that was all we needed. I thought it was gonna be a little bit more around the bottom. The new wall in three and four definitely keeps the cushion a little bit nicer, and the track was really racy and let us move around tonight. I’d been playing around some before that restart, but it was so fast getting in, I never could get a run. It’s a lot of fun to perform with it all on the line against Dave, and it was fun racing with him tonight,” Clauson said.

Tracey Hines “In traffic, even when I was back in fourth, I felt like I was in the catbird seat since they couldn’t see me working the bottom. I was okay up top, but I didn’t have a shot to get to the leaders, so I started searching. I found something in one and two earlier, and then later I stuck on something in three and four. I actually didn’t need the yellows because I was going good as we hit traffic,” Hines said.

Mike Spencer “I got to racing with Darland and thought I was better than he was, but I slid him and lost my momentum. That opened the door for Clauson to sneak through there and then Hines got me on the bottom. I got back to the top and found my momentum again, so we got going again towards the end. We had a big run on the last lap, and with the ledge as big as it was, I was able to get the wheels spinning and launch off the corner,” Spencer said.

FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Bryan Clauson, 2. Tracy Hines, 3. Mike Spencer, 4. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 5. Damion Gardner, 6. Dave Darland, 7. Josh Pelkey, 8. Robert Ballou, 9. Tyler Courtney, 10. Nick Drake, 11. Mike Martin, 12. Matt Mitchell, 13. Brady Bacon, 14. Chase Stockon, 15. Justin Grant, 16. Austin Williams, 17. R.J. Johnson, 18. Tom Ogle, 19. Nic Faas, 20. Cody Williams, 21. Charles Davis, Jr., 22. Josh Hodges, 23. Chris Windom, 24. Jon Stanbrough.
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**Davis flipped on the original start of the Feature. Windom flipped on lap 5 of the Feature.

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-20 Bacon, Laps 21-22 Darland, Laps 23-30 Clauson.

NIGHT TWO  “THE HALL OF FAME CLASSIC “  At Canyon Park Speedway was another chance for Dave Darland to regroup and try to claw back some of the points lost to Clauson when he almost ran a clean sweep of the Friday nights program.

They say you make your own luck but when the old lady has had some practice it is a bit like pushing a wheel barrow full of crap up a hill backwards. That’s how the peoples Champ Dave Darland would have felt after the night and valuable points had been lost.

One man’s misery can be another man’s joy and Chase Stockon of Elizabethtown, Indiana finally picked up his third win in the USAC/AMSOIL Series. Two Features win last season and 13 top 5 finishes in 30 races this year gave Stockton to confidence that he could run and beat the best.

The Hall of Fame Classic win in the Superior Tank & Trailer – Crescent Electric Supply #32 DRC/Fisher might have surprise some but Stockton has been there about all season.

Darland was involved in two separate tangles, the first in turn three on lap one and the second 10 laps from the finish with Williams, Courtney and Thomas effectively finishing off any chance Darland had of recovering points.

10 laps out and the race track was taking lots of rubber and the main talking point in the crowd  was who’s tyres would hold up. Stockton had covered Tracey Hines successfully all night after rounding Hines for the race lead on lap 2.

Justin Grant tucked in  behind the top-two after his early battles with them and came home in third aboard the Baldwin Brothers Racing – Fox Paving #5 DRC/Claxton

The night ended with a super win for Stockton , two podiums for Tracey Hines and Clauson extending his championship lead over Darland to 57 points.

Clauson and Darland will face off again in the final two events for the Championship at Perris Auto Speedway.

Driver quotes

Chas Stockton “I knew I had to get to the front, and that’s been something that’s cost us this year. We’ve just gotten there too late. We ran real strong most of the night last night, but struggled in the feature. I knew we were really good in the slick, but we got lucky to be able to get down to the rubber before Tracy (Hines) got us. A lot of people have said how this place can take rubber at times, so I knew that was a possibility. At the end, I was just trying not to miss it and we had a pro behind us in Tracy who ran us clean,” Stockton said.

Tracey Hines “It’s kind of a sucky second, because I felt like I was good. Once it laid rubber, I was in conserve mode. I caught him once in traffic, and I backed off a little bit because I saw him smoking it. We kinda thought he’d burn it off, and I ran him down when I saw the five-to-go. There just wasn’t much more I could do once I got there. I was surprised it laid rubber like that, and that’s unfortunate, but it was a good racing weekend for everybody,” Hines said.

Justin Grant “We fired off pretty good against the cushion, and I wish it would’ve stayed like that. We were pretty good up there. Tracy got by me off of two in the rubber and I got him back low in four, and like an idiot I went back to the top and he got back by me. After that, we pretty much got in line. I tried to pressure Tracy for a few, but then I kinda tried to copy him because he knows what he’s doing,” Grant said.

  FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Chase Stockon, 2. Tracy Hines, 3. Justin Grant, 4. R.J. Johnson, 5. Robert Ballou, 6. Chris Windom, 7. Bryan Clauson, 8. Damion Gardner, 9. Austin Williams, 10. Josh Pelkey, 11. Brady Bacon, 12. Jon Stanbrough, 13. Matt Mitchell, 14. Nic Faas, 15. Mike Spencer, 16. Charles Davis, Jr., 17. Rip Williams, 18. Nick Drake, 19. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 20. Dave Darland, 21. Cody Williams, 22. Tyler Courtney, 23. Michael Curtis, 24. Mike Martin. NT
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FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Lap 1 Hines, Laps 2-30 Stockon.

NEW AMSOIL NATIONAL SPRINT POINTS: 1-Clauson-1,828; 2-Darland-1,771; 3-Bacon-1,658; 4-Stockon-1,582; 5-Thomas-1,574; 6-Hines-1,464; 7-Ballou-1,413; 8-Windom-1,155; 9-Courtney-1,027; 10-Hunter Schuerenberg-1,000.

NEXT AMSOIL NATIONAL SPRINT RACE: November 1 – Perris, California – Perris Auto Speedway “Oval Nationals”