Perris, California…….Robert Ballou made it four-consecutive wins at Perris Auto Speedway on Friday night, as he coupled last year’s sweep of the Budweiser “Oval Nationals” presented by All Coast Construction with his second-straight preliminary feature win in this edition. The Rocklin, California driver was untouchable on this night, slicing through lapped traffic and withstanding a restart with five laps remaining to win by 3.123-seconds in the Pacific Turf & Grass – Blakesley Auto #12 Maxim/Ott, tallying his twelfth in the win column on the AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship season.
“It means a lot to put my name up there in terms of winning seasons with guys I know like Pancho Carter and Bubby Jones, and other guys who are the legendary names in sprint car racing. It’s special to have a season like this. I thought I gave away a couple too many to have a chance to put up a number like Bigelow’s 14 (all-time record), but now we’ve hit a hot streak again. It’s so tough to beat these guys out there, so we’re happy to be winning but I know we need to find even more to keep this going,” Ballou said.
Damion Gardner shot to the lead from outside the front row, with Ballou in tow as they completed lap one. It appeared as though Friday’s feature would be much like the night before, as a long green-flag run put Gardner into traffic at lap ten. Held up by traffic on lap 12, Gardner moved to the outside in turn-two as Ballou rocketed across the track down the backstretch with a full head of steam to fly by him with the lead.
Ballou was off into the night, opening up his lead as he lapped well up into the 26-car starting field. On lap 19, Ballou jumped the turn-one cushion and barely collected himself before getting into the fence. He continued on, still with a lead in excess of three seconds.
Chase Stockon’s title hopes took a severe hit on lap 25 when he shredded his right-rear tire down the frontstretch while running sixth. Unfortunately, there was too much damage to the car to continue.
With just six laps to go, Ballou had a cushion of six lapped cars between himself and Gardner, who was stationed in second ahead of ProSource Fast Qualifier Bryan Clauson, polesitter Brady Bacon, and the best run of Josh Hodges’ National Sprint Car career.
Bacon snuck under Gardner for second as they completed lap 25 and Clauson tried to come along as well, with Gardner slicing off the high side to battle back for third just as Clauson’s car shut off exiting turn-two. That caused a stack-up that collected six cars in total, with Kevin Thomas, Jr. narrowly escaping the melee to continue on.
With just five laps to go, all lapped cars went to the tail, but there was no stopping Ballou. He stretched out his point lead to 69 markers with another fine night, planting himself among just five drivers to ever win at least 12 races in a USAC National Sprint Car season.
Bacon came home second in the Hoffman Auto Racing – Mean Green #69 Triple X/Williams Mopar.
“Tonight puts us in a really good position for tomorrow, and we know tomorrow is such a big night where you want to have a shot. We’re gonna have to try some stuff to have a chance to beat Robert, but we’ve gotten better and have a shot to race with him for it. I felt like I hung with him when he went to the bottom on the last restart, but I think we all lost a little bit after the red, and I just didn’t have the drive to be able to go at him at all,” Bacon said.
Gardner rebounded from his tough opening night to fill the podium in the Alexander Racing – Scott Sales Company #4x Spike/J&D while capturing the CRA Sprint Car Championship point lead by twelve points over Mike Spencer.
“My guys worked hard today, and we got it turned around from last night. We just got behind last night, and tonight we started better, and the driver did his job a little bit better. Tonight is how we should be running. I’m glad Perris and All Coast Construction are putting on this great event, and I love it when the National guys come out here to race. I love the competition, and they’ve gotten the best of us so far with Ballou on fire, so we’ll have to get worked up and look for a little more speed to beat them. Hopefully we can find it,” Gardner said.
Tracy Hines came from eighth to finish fourth in his The Carolina Nut Company – MPHG Promotions #4 DRC/Stanton Chevy, and Kevin Thomas, Jr. rounded out the top-five despite running the last five laps with a flat left-front tire on the Griffin’s Propane – Bakken Concrete #17RW Maxim/Fisher.
Ballou, Bacon, Dave Darland, Thomas, Jr., Hines, and Thomas Meseraull locked themselves into Saturday’s 40-lap, $25,000-to-win championship feature. They will run the “Super 6 Dash” to determine the starting order of the first three rows.
Chris Windom picked up a second-straight “Hard Charger Award” from Schoenfeld Headers for his drive from 20th to finish eighth.
AMSOIL USAC SPRINT CAR NATIONAL & CRA CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: November 13, 2015 – Perris, California – Perris Auto Speedway – 20th Budweiser “Oval Nationals” presented by All Coast Construction
QUALIFYING: 1. Bryan Clauson, 63, Dooling/Hayward-16.647; 2. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 17RW, Dutcher-16.769; 3. Josh Hodges, 74x, Hodges-16.807; 4. Jake Swanson, 92, Sertich-16.827; 5. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-16.833; 6. Damion Gardner, 4x, Alexander-16.850; 7. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-16.859; 8. Tracy Hines, 4, THR-16.875; 9. Austin Williams, 2, Jory-16.919; 10. C.J. Leary, 30, Leary-16.941; 11. Dave Darland, 71p, Phillips/Curb-Agajanian-17.006; 12. Thomas Meseraull, 66, Amati-17.026; 13. Chase Stockon, 32, 32/TBI-17.093; 14. Aaron Farney, 15F, Farney-17.099; 15. Mike Spencer, 50, Chaffin-17.105; 16. Richard Vander Weerd, 10, Vander Weerd-17.119; 17. Brody Roa, 48, Leonard-17.125; 18. Danny Faria, Jr., 4D, Gansen-17.152; 19. Ryan Bernal, 56, Phulps-17.155; 20. Ronnie Gardner, 12A, Allen-17.186; 21. R.J. Johnson, 51, Martin-17.243; 22. Chris Windom, 21x, Pollock-17.250; 23. Matt Mitchell, 37, Mitchell-17.299; 24. Justin Grant, 5, Baldwin-17.302; 25. Jon Stanbrough, 81, Stanbrough-17.408; 26. Cody Williams, 44, Jory-17.428; 27. A.J. Bender, 21, Bender-17.458; 28. Mitch Wissmiller, 36, Springstead-17.463; 29. Logan Williams, 5J, Jory-17.532; 30. Chad Boespflug, 04G, Cook-17.549; 31. Kyle Edwards, 51E, Tafoya-17.550; 32. Austin Liggett, 83, Liggett-17.594; 33. Geoff Ensign, 3F, Finkenbinder-17.594; 34. Brady Short, 42, Cheney-17.607; 35. Matt Rossi, 02, Rossi-17.617; 36. Max Adams, 5M, Adams-17.710; 37. David Bezio, 37x, Bezio-17.798; 38. Verne Sweeney, 98JR, Tracy-17.810; 39. Lee Dakus, 75, Dakus-17.817; 40. Tommy Malcolm, 5x, Napier-17.869; 41. Koby Barksdale, 12B, Sampson-17.950; 42. Jace Vander Weerd, 88, Vander Weerd-18.013; 43. Chris Gansen, 4G, Gansen-18.064; 44. Jeremy Ellertson, 98, Ellertson-18.207; 45. Mike Collins, 04, Collins-18.626; 46. Parker Colston, 64, Gore-18.702; 47. Robert Bell, 71, Bell-19.079; 48. Randy Waitman, Y69, Waitman-19.341.
C-MAIN: (10 laps) 1. J. Vander Weerd, 2. Barksdale, 3. Colston, 4. Ellertson, 5. Gansen, 6. Waitman, 7. Bell, 8. Collins. NT
FIRST HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Clauson, 2. Darland, 3. D. Gardner, 4. R. Vander Weerd, 5. C. Williams, 6. Johnson, 7. Adams, 8. Edwards. 2:51.21
SECOND HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Meseraull, 2. Windom, 3. Bacon, 4. Bender, 5. Thomas, 6. Roa, 7. Liggett, 8. Bezio. 2:50.67
THIRD HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Stockon, 2. Faria, 3. Hines, 4. Hodges, 5. Mitchell, 6. Ensign, 7. Sweeney. 2:49.16
FOURTH HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Grant, 2. Farney, 3. Bernal, 4. Swanson, 5. Short, 6. A. Williams, 7. L. Williams, 8. Dakus. 2:53.74
FIFTH HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Ballou, 2. Boespflug, 3. Stanbrough, 4. Spencer, 5. R. Gardner, 6. Leary, 7. Rossi, 8. Malcolm. NT
SEMI: (12 laps) 1. Thomas, 2. A. Williams, 3. Leary, 4. Roa, 5. C. Williams, 6. Mitchell, 7. R. Gardner, 8. Ensign, 9. Liggett, 10. L. Williams, 11. Short, 12. J. Vander Weerd, 13. Bezio, 14. Johnson, 15. Rossi, 16. Adams, 17. Dakus, 18. Edwards, 19. Malcolm, 20. Colston, 21. Barksdale, 22. Ellertson, 23. Sweeney. 3:32.95
FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Robert Ballou, 2. Brady Bacon, 3. Damion Gardner, 4. Tracy Hines, 5. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 6. Thomas Meseraull, 7. Dave Darland, 8. Chris Windom, 9. C.J. Leary, 10. Austin Williams, 11. Richard Vander Weerd, 12. Jake Swanson, 13. Josh Hodges, 14. Ryan Bernal, 15. Mike Spencer, 16. Brody Roa, 17. Jon Stanbrough, 18. Justin Grant, 19. Danny Faria, Jr., 20. Aaron Farney, 21. Cody Williams, 22. A.J. Bender, 23. Bryan Clauson, 24. Chase Stockon, 25. Chad Boespflug, 26. Matt Mitchell. NT
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**Swanson flipped during qualifying. C. Williams flipped on lap 26 of the feature.
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-11 D. Gardner, Laps 12-30 Ballou.
NEW AMSOIL NATIONAL SPRINT POINTS: 1-Ballou-2042, 2- Darland-1973, 3-Stockon-1966, 4-Bacon-1850, 5-Stanbrough-1682, 6-Thomas-1636, 7-Windom-1478, 8-Leary-1351, 9-Hines-1291, 10-Grant-1188.
NEW AMSOIL USAC/CRA SPRINT POINTS: 1-D. Gardner-1212, 2-Spencer-1200, 3-R. Vander Weerd-1140, 4-Swanson-1018, 5-A. Williams-1005, 6-Roa-951, 7-Mitchell-786, 8-C. Williams-745, 9-L. Williams-650, 10-Bernal-550.
OVAL NATIONALS POINTS: 1-Ballou-292, 2-Bacon-267, 3-Darland-261, 4-Thomas-246, 5-Hines-239, 6-Meseraull-238, 7-D. Gardner-236, 8-R. Vander Weerd-232, 9-Clauson-230, 10-Stockon-225.
NEXT AMSOIL NATIONAL & CRA SPRINT RACE: November 14 – Perris (CA) Auto Speedway – 20th Budweiser “Oval Nationals” presented by All Coast Construction
