BREAKTHROUGH! BACON WINS FIRST TONY HULMAN CLASSIC AT TERRE HAUTE

By: Richie Murray – USAC Media

Terre Haute, Indiana (May 23, 2023)………Of the scores of races Brady Bacon has won in his career, a victory in the Tony Hulman Classic had been one that had forever eluded him.

The Broken Arrow, Okla. native had accrued 13 starts in the event since 2006, including a pair of runner-up finishes in both 2013 and 2022, a span in which he claimed a total of four USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championships.

When he crossed the finish line first and held the signature rifle in his hands in victory lane following Tuesday night’s 53rd annual edition of the event at the Terre Haute (Ind.) Track, Bacon knew this one was special.  He’d won twice before with the USAC National Sprint Cars at the famed half-mile in 2014 and 2018, but this win in this particular event stood just a little bit taller in the book of Bacon.

“We’ve won here a couple times but none of those races are as big as this one,” Bacon stated.  “The Hulman Classic has such a long history with USAC and sprint car racing in general, and it’s always tough to get wins on these historical tracks.”

In his 30-lap, wire-to-wire leading performance that rewarded him with a $10,000 top prize, Bacon also moved up another notch on the all-time USAC National Sprint Car feature win list.  The 48th of his career elevated him past 2002 series champion Tracy Hines for sole possession of third on the all-time series win list.  He now stands just four behind Tom Bigelow (52) for second place and 14 behind leader Dave Darland (62).

Furthermore, of his 48 career USAC National Sprint Car victories, 40 have come in the Hoffman Auto Racing / Dynamics, Inc. No. 69.  The 40th score for Bacon and the team on Tuesday at Terre Haute are tied for the most victories between a driver/entrant combo in series history.  The pairing now shares top billing with driver Pancho Carter and team owner Steve Stapp, who also achieved 40 victories with the series between 1973-80.

Ironically enough, Bacon’s monumental victory came on a night when Stapp, an inductee of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame, was remembered for his performance in breaking the USAC Sprint Car track record at Terre Haute just a few weeks shy of 60 years ago.  In his name, the Stapp family posted a $250 bonus for the night’s fastest qualifier, which went to Mitchel Moles.

With the six-car inversion for the main event, Moles rolled off in the sixth starting position while Bacon, the sixth fastest qualifier, began his quest from the pole position in the race, which also served as the second of ten rounds for the Bubby Jones Master of Goin’ Faster Series Presented by Spire Sports + Entertainment.  Bacon just so happened to capture the inaugural title a year ago, earning a $10,000 prize for placing as the top-point-getter in the miniseries.

The pursuit for Tuesday night’s Hulman Classic $10,000 reward began with Bacon taking his Dynamics, Inc./Longworth Properties – Mays Shedd Sales & Service/Triple X/Rider Chevy out to the early lead while inside second row starter Justin Grant moved along the inside rail to challenge Bacon at the front of pack.

The first yellow flag fell just three laps into the race when a pair of Hulman Classic winners found themselves involved in a sudden kerfuffle.  Seventh running Kevin Thomas Jr., the 2017 race winner, slowed dramatically on the front straight with a radius rod issue.  Robert Ballou, the 2015-15-22 race winner, was running eighth at the time when he became entangled in the incident, and began leaking fuel from the tail tank, knocking him out of the race.  Thomas, meanwhile, had his car repaired in the Indy Metal Finishing Work Area, and returned to competition, finishing 12th.

Bacon resumed up front, and by lap 11, was already working lapped traffic.  Soon after, Bacon was challenged by Grant, also seeking his first Hulman Classic triumph.  Grant tossed a slider in turn one, clearing Bacon, but not the lapped car of Hunter Maddox.  Grant ricocheted off the left side of Maddox while Bacon slipped back underneath to retake the lead off turn two.

Bacon felt he had the opportunity to shake Grant, but circumstances didn’t exactly allow that.  Instead, he took matters into his own hands, twice shooting the gap to narrowly split between a pair of lapped cars occupying the lower and higher lines getting into turns one and three.

“We hit it right tonight and got to start up front,” Bacon explained.  “I could set my own pace and kind of conserve my stuff a little bit.  I just caught that one guy wrong a couple times, then I didn’t get a good run to slide him; I just put myself in a bad spot.  I probably just wasn’t aggressive enough, and maybe should’ve done it and pushed the issue a bit more, but it was still early in the race, and I was still feeling out the pace I needed to be.  Thankfully, we were able to stay ahead of them without a collision tonight and hold them off.”

Grant reloaded the chamber and went on the attack once more in turns one and two on the 14th circuit.  Grant’s slider missed, but just as he tailed Bacon, he became stymied behind the lapped car of Carson Garrett, which stifled his pursuit and dropped him back another full two seconds behind Bacon.

The chase Grant levied toward Bacon came to an abrupt halt on lap 21 when the injection broke on Grant’s second place running machine, which made the throttle stick on the floor pan.  Grant managed to shut the engine off and gathered it up, but the mount lost a butterfly and caused some damage to the powerplant which prevented him from resuming in the race, relegating him to an 18th place result.

As a result of Grant’s misfortune, Bacon became a bit fearful of the race pace and its effect on his equipment, and therefore, his chances of victory.

“It made me nervous that I was maybe going too hard on my stuff,” Bacon admitted.  “Then I started feeling some stuff here and there, which was probably not there and just making me feel a little paranoid.”

While Bacon embraced the clear road ahead of him, the tussle behind him became anxious in the waning laps.  Moles became a major player when he and Kyle Cummins jockeyed for third on the lap 21 restart.  The two made slight contact on Moles’ slider attempt in turn one, sending Moles into the third spot.  Cummins responded posthaste by grabbing the spot right back a half lap later in turn three.

The duo of Cummins and Moles made a beeline to second and third, respectively, moments later when Cummins slid Jake Swanson in turn one followed by Moles drag racing past Swanson on the back straight for third.  On lap 25, Moles nearly collected the turn two outside wall as he attacked Cummins, losing the third position to Swanson who eked by underneath on the back straightaway.

However, it was all to the advantage of Bacon who opened his interval to more than five seconds while the fires of the battle raged on in the distance behind him.  Ultimately, Bacon closed out a victorious evening with a 5.971 margin of victory at the checkered flag over Cummins, Swanson, Moles and C.J. Leary, who earned Hard Charger honors after starting back in the 13th spot.

Starting second and finishing second, Kyle Cummins (Princeton, Ind.) equaled his best career Tony Hulman Classic finish on Tuesday night as he moved himself up to second in the season long USAC National Sprint Car championship points race in his Rock Steady Racing/Avanti Windows & Doors – Tim Mason ReMax/Mach-1/Stanton Chevy.  Each of Cummins’ last two Hulman Classic starts have resulted in second place finishes in 2021 and 2023.

For Jake Swanson (Anaheim, Calif.) this Hulman Classic was his best yet.  In his four career Hulman starts, he's finished inside the top-eight in all of them: 4th (2020), 8th (2021), 6th (2022) and 3rd on Tuesday night in his Team AZ Racing/Apache Transport – Stratis Construction – USW Cat Construction/DRC/1-Way Chevy.  In the process, Swanson retained his position as the frontrunner of the Bubby Jones Master of Goin’ Faster series.

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USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: May 23, 2023 – Terre Haute Action Track – Terre Haute, Indiana – 1/2-Mile Dirt Track – 53rd Annual Tony Hulman Classic – Bubby Jones Master of Goin’ Faster Presented By Spire Sports + Entertainment Race #2

HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-19.738; 2. Jake Swanson, 21AZ, Team AZ-19.916; 3. Max Adams, 5x, Adams-19.964; 4. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-20.004; 5. Kyle Cummins, 3R, Rock Steady-20.156; 6. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-20.175; 7. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-20.333; 8. Daison Pursley, 5p, KO-20.393; 9. Logan Seavey, 2B, 2B Racing-20.482; 10. Kevin Thomas Jr., 17GP, Dutcher-20.532; 11. C.J. Leary, 15x, BGE Dougherty-20.629; 12. Chase Stockon, 5s, KO-20.697; 13. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-20.723; 14. Charles Davis Jr., 47, Davis-20.800; 15. Sterling Cling, 34, SCR-20.907; 16. Carson Garrett, 15, BGE Dougherty-20.927; 17. Matt Westfall, 33m, Marshall-20.978; 18. Emerson Axsom, 47BC, Clauson Marshall-21.055; 19. Tim Creech, 31c, Creech-21.061; 20. Jadon Rogers, 5, Baldwin/Fox-21.167; 21. Hunter Maddox, 24m, Maddox-21.748; 22. Travis Thompson, 7, Thompson-21.785; 23. Kevin Newton, 16TH, Newton-21.843; 24. Ivan Glotzbach, i1, Glotzbach-22.073.

SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr. 2. Robert Ballou, 3. Mitchel Moles, 4. Justin Grant, 5. Carson Garrett, 6. Brandon Mattox, 7. Travis Thompson. 2:48.88

ROD END SUPPLY SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Charles Davis Jr., 2. C.J. Leary, 3. Kyle Cummins, 4. Jake Swanson, 5. Matt Westfall, 6. Daison Pursley, 7. Jadon Rogers, 8. Kevin Newton. 2:49.93

T.J. FORGED/CAR IQ THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Emerson Axsom, 2. Brady Bacon, 3. Chase Stockon, 4. Logan Seavey, 5. Max Adams, 6. Hunter Maddox, 7. Ivan Glotzbach, 8. Sterling Cling. NT

ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (8 laps, top-7 transfer to the feature) 1. Daison Pursley, 2. Jadon Rogers, 3. Brandon Mattox, 4. Ivan Glotzbach, 5. Travis Thompson, 6. Tim Creech, 7. Hunter Maddox, 8. Kevin Newton. 2:55.24

FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Brady Bacon (1), 2. Kyle Cummins (2), 3. Jake Swanson (5), 4. Mitchel Moles (6), 5. C.J. Leary (13), 6. Max Adams (4), 7. Emerson Axsom (9), 8. Logan Seavey (12), 9. Daison Pursley (11), 10. Chase Stockon (14), 11. Matt Westfall (17), 12. Kevin Thomas Jr. (7), 13. Charles Davis Jr. (8), 14. Carson Garrett (16), 15. Travis Thompson (21), 16. Ivan Glotzbach (22), 17. Hunter Maddox (20), 18. Justin Grant (3), 19. Brandon Mattox (15), 20. Jadon Rogers (19), 21. Tim Creech (18), 22. Robert Ballou (10). NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-30 Brady Bacon.

USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-C.J. Leary-480, 2-Kyle Cummins-465, 3-Emerson Axsom-457, 4-Brady Bacon-452, 5-Justin Grant-450, 6-Jake Swanson-423, 7-Kevin Thomas Jr.-408, 8-Chase Stockon-397, 9-Mitchel Moles-394, 10-Logan Seavey-340.

BUBBY JONES MASTER OF GOIN’ FASTER PRESENTED BY SPIRE SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT POINTS: 1-Jake Swanson-153, 2-Mitchel Moles-146, 3-Kyle Cummins-143, 4-C.J. Leary-142, 5-Chase Stockon-121, 6-Emerson Axsom-118, 7-Max Adams-116, 8-Brady Bacon-110, 9-Kevin Thomas Jr.-103, 10-Carson Garrett-97.

OVERALL PROSOURCE PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Justin Grant-35, 2-Daison Pursley-34, 3-Carson Garrett-31, 4-Chase Stockon-30, 5-Thomas Meseraull-23, 6-Matt Westfall-23, 7-Kevin Thomas Jr.-20, 8-Brady Bacon-19, 9-Gavin Miller-17, 10-Logan Seavey-16.

NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACES: May 24-25, 2023 – Circle City Raceway – Indianapolis, Indiana – 1/4-Mile Dirt Track – Circle City Salute

NEXT BUBBY JONES MASTER OF GOIN’ FASTER PRESENTED BY SPIRE SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT RACE: June 3, 2023 – Knoxville Raceway – Knoxville, Iowa – 1/2-Mile Dirt Track – Avanti Windows & Doors Corn Belt Clash

CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:

Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Kevin Thomas Jr. (20.125)

Honest Abe Roofing / Steve “Bopper” Stapp Fast Qualifier: Mitchel Moles (19.738)

Simpson Race Products First Heat Winner: Kevin Thomas Jr.

Rod End Supply Second Heat Winner: Charles Davis Jr.

T.J. Forged / CarIQ Third Heat Winner: Emerson Axsom

Elliott’s Custom Trailers & Carts Semi Winner: Daison Pursley

Hard Charger: C.J. Leary (13th to 5th)