Peoria, Arizona.……After narrowly coming home second in the opening night of Honda National/Western Midget action at the 47th Sands Chevrolet “Western World Championships,” defending series champion Christopher Bell won in convincing fashion in Friday’s preliminary night.

Bell started from the front row and was largely unthreatened throughout the 30-lapper. Three cautions reset his advantage, but second-running Bryan Clauson could not gain ground for the lead.

It was the sixth win of the season for the Norman, Oklahoma driver aboard the Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports – Toyota TRD #71 Bullet/Speedway Toyota. In the process, he whittled teammate Rico Abreu’s point lead to 53 entering Saturday’s weekend finale.

“Tonight, I put myself in a good position through qualifying, and transferred through my heat to give me a better starting spot. It was pretty smooth sailing out there as long as I didn’t make any major mistakes. It was tricky up there as the curb built up pretty high, especially with the ledge off turn-four. I had my hands full at times,” Bell said.

Clauson tried every line imaginable but had to settle for second in the Curb Records – Jonathan Byrd’s Racing #63 Spike/Esslinger.

“If I could hit it right, we could maintain or even gain a little ground, but we weren’t gonna be able to go around him without thick traffic. I wasn’t necessarily comfortable up top, but that was where we needed to be. We were inching back up to him but blew the last restart and then nearly got in the fence and lost that ground back to him,” Clauson said.

Zach Daum rounded out the podium to make himself high-point man going into Saturday’s $7,500-to-win championship night.

“I wanted to try the bottom, but I gave up on it after a couple corners. The momentum up top was the way to go. We can’t complain too much, but we can be better for tomorrow. It’s great that they put up good money for us to race this weekend, and we’re sitting in good shape for it,” Daum said.

Friday winner Tracy Hines came home fourth in the Parker Machinery – Turbines, Inc. #24 Spike/Stanton Toyota, and Tanner Thorson finished fifth in the Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports – Toyota TRD #67 Bullet/Speedway Toyota.

USAC HONDA NATIONAL & WESTERN MIDGET RACE RESULTS: November 21, 2014 – Peoria, Arizona – Canyon Speedway Park – 47th Sands Chevrolet “Western World Championships”

QUALIFICATIONS: 1. Rico Abreu, 97, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.775; 2. Zach Daum, 5D, Daum-13.817; 3. Bryan Clauson, 63, RKR/Curb-Agajanian-13.859; 4. Tracy Hines, 24, Parker-13.866; 5. Tanner Thorson, 67, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.889; 6. Christopher Bell, 71, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.910; 7. Tyler Thomas, 91T, Thomas-14.025; 8. Darren Hagen, 56, Hmiel-14.057; 9. Ronnie Gardner, 68, Johnson-14.084; 10. Trey Marcham, 73, Ford-14.162; 11. Shannon McQueen, 7, McQueen-14.208; 12. Brady Bacon, 51s, Fly-14.267; 13. Shane Golobic, 17, Nichols-14.279; 14. Casey Shuman, 32, Dunlap-14.309; 15. Mike Spencer, 57, Ecker-14.381; 16. Isaac Chapple, 52, Chapple-14.448; 17. Jarid Blondel, 98, Blondel-14.815; 18. Terry Goodwin, 2G, Goodwin-15.317; 19. Nick Foster, Jr., 17N, Nichols-16.472.

FIRST HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Golobic, 2. Thomas, 3. Marcham, 4. Abreu, 5. Hines, 6. Chapple.

SECOND HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Hagen, 2. Daum, 3. Shuman, 4. Thorson, 5. McQueen, 6. Blondel.

THIRD HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Spencer, 2. Clauson, 3. Gardner, 4. Bacon, 5. Bell, 6. Goodwin.

FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Christopher Bell, 2. Bryan Clauson, 3. Zach Daum, 4. Tracy Hines, 5. Tanner Thorson, 6. Rico Abreu, 7. Casey Shuman, 8. Tyler Thomas, 9. Ronnie Gardner, 10. Shane Golobic, 11. Darren Hagen, 12. Mike Spencer, 13. Isaac Chapple, 14. Terry Goodwin, 15. Shannon McQueen, 16. Trey Marcham, 17. Jarid Blondel, 18. Nick Foster, Jr., 19. Brady Bacon.
-------------------------------
**Marcham flipped on Lap 7.

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-30 Bell.
 

NEW HONDA USAC NATIONAL MIDGET POINTS: 1-Abreu-969; 2-Bell-916; 3-Hines-909; 4-Clauson-864; 5-Daum-791; 6-Thorson-684; 7-Chris Windom-594; 8-Michael Pickens-499; 9-Dave Darland-419; 10-Andrew Felker-378.

NEW HONDA USAC WESTERN MIDGET POINTS: 1-R.Gardner-719, 2-Marcham-653, 3-Blondel-607, 4-Alex Schutte-443, 5-Chad Nichols-433, 6-McQueen-356, 7-Scott Pierovich-327, 8-Nick Chivello-322, 9-Sean Dodenhoff-283, 10-Bell-270.

NEW HONDA USAC WESTERN MIDGET DIRT POINTS: 1-R.Gardner-719, 2-Marcham-653, 3-Alex Schutte-390, 4-Blondel-386, 5-McQueen-356, 6-Scott Pierovich-288, 7-Sean Dodenhoff-283, 8-Bell-270, 9-Thorson-249, 10-Abreu-222.

NEXT HONDA NATIONAL/WESTERN MIDGET RACE: November 22 – Peoria, AZ – Canyon Speedway Park - 47th Annual Sands Chevrolet “Western World Championships”