GRANT, BACON, KTJ, THORSON & COURTNEY LOCKED INTO SATURDAY’S OCALA FEATURE

By: Richie Murray – USAC Media

Ocala, Florida (February 13, 2021)………Five drivers are locked into Saturday's $10,000-to-win Winter Dirt Games XII finale, having secured the first five starting births after earning the most combined points throughout Thursday’s and Friday’s USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car events at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Fla.

The drivers include high point man Justin Grant (Ione, Calif.), plus Thursday’s winner Kevin Thomas Jr. (Cullman, Ala.), Brady Bacon (Broken Arrow, Okla.), Tanner Thorson (Minden, Nev.) and Tyler Courtney (Indianapolis, Ind.).

Throughout the first two nights of the Sprint Car portion of Winter Dirt Games XII, drivers accumulated points each time they were on track – in qualifying, preliminary events and feature races.  The points from Thursday’s and Friday’s events have been totaled and have set the starting lineups for Saturday night’s event on Feb. 13, which will culminate with the first 35-lap feature run by the series since a 2006 victory by Darren Hagen at Anderson (Ind.) Speedway.

The points system on Thursday and Friday was utilized solely for the purposes of setting Saturday’s starting lineups.

Saturday night’s program will have no qualifying, and will instead consist of three qualifying races, each 10 laps in length, lined up “straight-up” based on total combined points from the first two nights.  The lineup will snake with 6th overall in points on the pole of the first qualifying race, 7th in points on the pole for the second qualifying race and 8th in points on the pole for the third qualifying race, and so on.

The top-four finishers from each qualifying race will transfer to the feature.  Those finishing 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th or 9th in each qualifying race will be placed into the semi-feature.  Those finishing 10th on back in each qualifying race will be placed into a 10-lap C-Main, if needed, where the top-3 finishers will transfer to the semi-feature and occupy the final three starting positions of that race.

The winning drivers of each qualifying race will transfer into a dash with the top-5 locked in drivers.  Starting positions for the dash will be drawn for with the qualifying race winners selecting first when they stop for their winner’s interview, followed by the lock-ins.  Positions 1 and 2 on the front row for the feature will only be available in the draw to the five drivers previously locked in.  The finish of the 8-car, 4-lap dash will determine the first 4 rows of the feature.

The top-5 finishers from the 12-lap semi-feature will transfer into the night’s feature, filling the final five positions in the feature starting lineup.

The feature will consist of 22 cars (not counting up to two provisionals) and 35 laps, as determined by the finishing order of the dash – 1st place finisher starts 1st, 2nd place finisher starts 2nd and so on.

Pits open at 4pm ET, front gates open at 5pm and cars on track at 6pm with qualifying and racing immediately following.

Race day tickets will be available at the gate on race day.  No pre-order is necessary.

Winter Dirt Games XII can be watched LIVE on FloRacing.

WINTER DIRT GAMES XII SPRINT POINTS:

1. 689-Justin Grant

2. 675-Brady Bacon

3. 675-Kevin Thomas Jr.

4. 656-Tanner Thorson

5. 654-Tyler Courtney

6. 639-C.J. Leary

7. 635-Kyle Cummins

8. 627-Buddy Kofoid

9. 623-Chris Windom

10. 615-Jake Swanson

11. 595-Timmy Buckwalter

12. 580-Robert Ballou

13. 558-Chase Stockon

14. 549-Noah Gass

15. 546-Jadon Rogers

16. 534-Dave Darland

17. 507-Paul Nienhiser

18. 502-Kory Schudy

19. 499-Matt Westfall

20. 469-Chase Johnson

21. 469-Briggs Danner

22. 463-Davey Ray

23. 463-Cole Bodine

24. 462-Mario Clouser

25. 454-Stevie Sussex

26. 425-Carson Garrett

27. 418-Sterling Cling

28. 371-Brandon Mattox

29. 359-Brent Beauchamp

30. 356-Dustin Clark

31. 349-Max Adams

32. 345-Chayse Hayhurst

33. 341-Matt Goodnight

34. 325-Kade Morton

35. 323-Riley Kreisel

36. 320-Ryan Thomas

37. 295-Shane Butler

38. 290-Dickie Gaines

39. 286-Drew Rader

40. 277-Cam Schafer

41. 272-Scott Evans

42. 271-Blake Vermillion

43. 257-Craig Pellegrini

44. 244-Jesse Vermillion

45. 128-Robert Bell