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Contact: Richie Murray - USAC Media / richie@usacracing.com

PERFECT SUNSHINE NIGHT FOR COURTNEY IN MOBERLY'S USAC RETURN

By: Richie Murray - USAC Media

Moberly, Missouri.....July 30, 2017 - Over the course of 140-plus years of Major League Baseball, there've been 23 different pitchers who've thrown a perfect game. The perfect 300 bowling game is celebrated as one of the highest achievements in all of sport. A few times per year, you'll hear of an NFL quarterback who scored a perfect 158.3 rating.

Less heralded is the perfect race. There's so many variables, obstacles and outside influences in auto racing that can play interference on each corner and each lap, it's nearly impossible to accomplish. Plus, in auto racing, there are no points systems or judges to determine what a "perfect" score is.

In a 30-lap USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car race, perfection is an expectation. On Sunday night in the series' first trip to Randolph County Raceway since 1989, Tyler Courtney was just about as perfect as you can be, staving off pressure from Brady Bacon down the stretch to win his third series feature of the year.

"Racing with the guys we race with night-in and night-out, you've got to be perfect for 30 laps," Courtney explained. "I was able to minimize mistakes tonight. When you're on the pole, you're the guy being chased. You have to put that in the back of your mind and go out and run your race and put 30 laps together."

It was a treacherous beginning at the front as pole sitter Courtney gained the initial advantage running the high line. Inside second row starter Chris Windom pulled into second and dove to the bottom in turn three, momentarily holding onto a one car length lead when his orange No. 5 biked on entry, then landed on all fours before digging in on the left rear and barrel-rolling three-and-a-half times over the concrete wall. Fortunately, Windom was able to climb from the car and walk away from the scene uninjured, but the incident certainly proved detrimental to his championship hopes with a 20th place result.

When racing resumed, Courtney headed for the bottom in turns one and two while Leary manhandled the top. Conversely, in turns three and four, Courtney aimed for the top as Leary followed suit. While it was in the original plans to run different lines on each end of the track, Courtney acknowledged that Windom's incident confirmed his notion to run up against the wall in turns three and four.

"That was my original plan and I stuck to it for as long as I could until I felt like I had to change," Courtney admitted. "Once I saw the start of Chris's flip, I knew there had to be something evil down there. All night, the top of (turns) three and four had been really fast and we were able to carry our momentum. One and two was kind of a crap shoot. You had to move around a little bit and I knew the bottom was going to be good for a while with the kind of moisture that was down there. I ran down there in one and two for a while and saw Brady (Bacon) challenge me in (turns) three and four, so I changed it up and went to the top in one and two and was able to pull away from him a bit"

As Courtney maintained a roughly eight-car-length advantage by the fifth lap, second-running Leary tested the waters on the bottom of turn three himself when setting up a slider on Courtney for the lead. Similarly to Windom, Leary biked, but was able to gather it up and continue on. That opened the door for Saturday night Lakeside winner Brady Bacon to pounce and he momentarily grabbed second from Leary at the line. Leary regained his grip and hit the top once again in turns one and two to race back around Bacon to regain the second spot.

As the leaders worked their way through lapped traffic on the 11th lap, Leary got hung up behind a lapper and dove low into turn three to get by, but Bacon saw an opening and was able to do the Limbo Rock even lower than Leary to take second. Though, unlike a few others, Bacon's maneuver against the inside wall of turn three looked smooth as silk, but it wasn't as easy as he made it look.

"The car was tightened up to run the top of the racetrack, but the way the transition of the banking is down on the bottom, it would slam you right into that banking and it would upset your car," Bacon explained.

Following a restart just prior to the halfway mark, Bacon was able to take a peek underneath Courtney for the race lead heading into turn three, to no avail. Courtney took note and altered his game plan.

"I made a couple of adjustments on the shocks and moved my line to the top of one and two and started doing a little diamond move," Courtney detailed. "Once I felt like there wasn't any pressure, I still kept doing what I was doing and had to really pay attention to the noises around me. You always have to be looking ahead of you, though. There was a lot of lapped traffic tonight, but it's how these races go. You're racing against professional racecar drivers like Brady who run 100 races a year in every type of car. He sees a lot night-in, night-out."

Down the stretch, Courtney and Bacon encountered numerous lapped cars, but each time, the pair escaped without issue. With two laps remaining, though, 13th running Rob Caho, Jr. was running the leaders' preferred line up top. With Bacon on the chase, any slip up would be costly and Courtney had to be wary. In a fast-paced race, you have to make on-the-fly decisions and Courtney was prepared.

"The closing rate is really fast here," Courtney explained. "I knew he was going to be running the top. I just backed my entry up a little bit and had to make sure I wasn't going to run over the top of him coming off the corner. I just set myself up to slide him or go to the bottom in one and two and was able to clear him for the last time. You always take a deep breath once you get by a lapped car because you know the guy behind you has to deal with him next and you can get back to racing your own race."

Courtney, using the lapped car as a buffer between he and Bacon, used the opportunity to escape from the pressure and close out his fourth USAC National win in 2017 at a track he was visiting for the first time in his career (Sprint: I-80 Speedway in Nebraska & Randolph County Raceway in Missouri. Midget: Montpelier (Ind.) Motor Speedway & the Illinois State Fairgrounds Multi-Purpose Arena). Brady Bacon took second ahead of Justin Grant, Robert Ballou and Kevin Thomas, Jr.

That statistic emphasizes that Courtney, of Indianapolis, Indiana, is a quick study and one who is able to adapt to changing situations. After the track rework between qualifying and the heats, new lines opened up and Courtney took notice.

"It's very similar to Lawrenceburg and I-80 too, so it didn't take too long to adapt," Courtney compared. "This place is a high-speed momentum place. It changed a lot from the beginning to the end. We weren't even touching the bottom at the beginning of the night. Having to adapt to run the bottom, it's just something that's part of the job. You have to figure out when to do it and when not to do it. Tonight, we made the right moves at the right time."

Bacon, of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma had two successful nights in the heartland in his Dooling-Hayward Motorsports/B & H Contractors - Dooling Machine/Spike/Stanton Mopar, finishing first and second in two USAC Sprint Car appearances this weekend.

"He was a little better than us," Bacon acknowledged. "We got close that one time, but we just didn't have a lot of grip on exit. We blistered our tires pretty early and it just wasn't our night. A couple times, we could get a good run and other times, not as much. Tyler never made a mistake, even when we got to him. That's how you win races. That's how we won last night."

Ione, California's Justin Grant extended his point lead to 79 over Windom with a third-place finish in his Sam McGhee Motorsports/ProGlide Bearings - Mike McGhee & Associates/Maxim/Foxco. But, at first, the point lead didn't cross his mind as he saw his fellow competitor and friend exit the racetrack.

"My biggest worry was that Chris was hurt," Grant said. "Sailing out of this place, you don't know what's on the other side of those banks. (Crew Chief) Sam (McGhee) ran out on the track under that red flag to work on the car and I asked, 'Is he all right.' Sam said, 'I don't know.' I said 'Well, go down and check on him.' Sam came back and said he was okay and that made me feel a whole lot better."

Once Grant found out about Windom's well-being, he admits that he couldn't help but think about the points race and how he could capitalize.

"It's definitely in the back of your mind," Grant stated. "You never want to see a guy turn over, especially since Chris is a buddy of mine. You hate that for him, but at the same time, it's a good time to capitalize on points. We wanted to win but when you get an opportunity like that to gain a bunch of points, you try not to throw it away. I wanted to make sure I didn't make any mistakes that would cost us a bunch. I felt like we did a good job to take advantage of that."

Contingency award winners Sunday at Randolph County Raceway include Justin Grant (ProSource Fast Qualifier & Simpson Race Products 1st Heat Winner), Kevin Thomas, Jr. (Competition Suspension, Inc. 2nd Heat Winner), Brady Bacon (Chalk Stix/Indy Race Parts 3rd Heat Winner), Riley Kreisel (KSE Racing Products Hard Charger) and Rob Caho, Jr. (Wilwood Brakes 13th Place Finisher).

USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: July 30, 2017 - Moberly, Missouri - Randolph County Raceway

PROSOURCE QUALIFYING: 1. Justin Grant, 11, McGhee-16.721; 2. Chase Stockon, 32, 32 TBI-16.898; 3. Brady Bacon, 63, Dooling/Hayward-16.914; 4. Chris Windom, 5, Baldwin-16.994; 5. C.J. Leary, 30, Leary-17.021; 6. Tyler Courtney, 23c, TOPP-17.164; 7. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-17.176; 8. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 9K, KT-17.300; 9. Jarett Andretti, 18, Andretti-17.307; 10. Chad Boespflug, 69, Dynamics-17.431; 11. Josh Hodges, 74x, Hodges-17.789; 12. Wyatt Burks, 11w, Rumsey-17.928; 13. Katlynn Leer, 77K, Leer-18.526; 14. Michael Moore, 21m, M3 Racing-18.695; 15. Riley Kreisel, 90, Smith-19.028; 16. Patrick Budde, 90x, Budde-19.046; 17. Steve Thomas, 20, Thomas-19.232; 18. Warren Johnson, 42, Johnson-19.271; 19. Rob Caho, Jr., 78, Caho-19.500; 20. Robert Bell, 71, Bell-19.582.

SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Grant, 2. Ballou, 3. Windom, 4. Boespflug, 5. Caho, 6. Leer, 7. Budde. 2:22.22

COMPETITION SUSPENSION (CSI) SECOND HEAT: (8 laps) 1. K. Thomas, 2. Stockon, 3. Hodges, 4. Leary, 5. S. Thomas, 6. Moore, 7. Bell. 2:21.64

CHALK STIX/INDY RACE PARTS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Bacon, 2. Kreisel, 3. Courtney, 4. Andretti, 5. Burks, 6. Johnson. 2:23.12

FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Tyler Courtney, 2. Brady Bacon, 3. Justin Grant, 4. Robert Ballou, 5. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 6. Chad Boespflug, 7. Chase Stockon, 8. Josh Hodges, 9. Riley Kreisel, 10. Jarett Andretti, 11. C.J. Leary, 12. Wyatt Burks, 13. Rob Caho, Jr., 14. Patrick Budde, 15. Steve Thomas, 16. Robert Bell, 17. Katlynn Leer, 18. Michael Moore, 19. Warren Johnson, 20. Chris Windom. NT
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FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-30 Courtney.

KSE RACING PRODUCTS HARD CHARGER: Riley Kreisel (15th to 9th)

WILWOOD BRAKES 13TH PLACE FINISHER: Rob Caho, Jr.

NEW USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Grant-1518, 2-Windom-1439, 3-Boespflug-1341, 4-K. Thomas-1325, 5-Courtney-1309, 6-Stockon-1297, 7-Leary-1130, 8-Bacon-1070, 9-Ballou-971, 10-Andretti-955.

NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACES: August 23-26 - Kokomo, Indiana - Kokomo Speedway - "Sprint Car Smackdown VI"

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Contact: Richie Murray - USAC Media / richie@usacracing.com

BACON TURNS IN K.C. MASTERPIECE AT LAKESIDE

By: Richie Murray - USAC Media

Kansas City, Kansas.....July 30, 2017 - One of the statistics bandied about in the week leading up to Saturday night's USAC return to Lakeside Speedway was the fact that the most accomplished drivers in the sport, more often than not, seem to rise to the occasion when the venerable club visits the Kansas City, Kansas oval.

Coming into the event, 13 of the 17 drivers who had won USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car features at the old Lakeside Speedway half-mile and the newer Lakeside Speedway 4/10-mile were either USAC National champions or National Sprint Car Hall of Fame inductees.

One of those names absent from the list entering the Saturday night was Broken Arrow, Oklahoma's Brady Bacon. The two-time USAC National Sprint Car champ came within a lap of stamping his initials on that list in 2016. One year later, though, redemption was on his mind as he led all 30 laps to score his first triumph at Lakeside.

On the start, Bacon jumped ahead from the pole while third-place starter, young Riley Kreisel stepped into second. Right off the bat, though, a campfire broke out underneath the hood of Bacon's ride as a trail of smoke clouded the sky behind him. No harm, no foul, though, as it was merely a little overflow spilling out of the oil tank. Bacon glanced down at the oil pressure gage and reassured that everything was perfectly fine from his vantage point.

As Bacon stretched his lead up front, series point leader Justin Grant had pedaled his way to second past Kreisel midway down the back straightaway on lap 12 and began to race his way toward Bacon, who had just begun to enter the toils of negotiating lapped traffic.

Bacon split between the lappers down low, around the outside and anywhere he could go to escape the net Grant had begun to cast. Grant chiseled away at the lead as the gap between he and leader Bacon sunk down to the closest margin it had been all race.

Suddenly, third-running Kreisel emerged from the exit of turn four on the 18th lap with a flat right front tire, ending a superb run for the young Missouri driver who had wowed the crowd with his dazzling, rim-riding performance through the first half of the event.

While the news for Kreisel and, to an extent, Grant, was sour times, Bacon was pleased with how the circumstances played out for himself as the seas were now parted and lapped traffic would no longer play a factor in the immediate future.

"We just got caught in a bad spot a couple times with the lapped cars," Bacon explains. "A couple laps like that and they can really reel you in pretty fast. If we had reached an open track again, I think we would have been okay and probably pulled away, but it just kind of slowed everything down briefly."

When racing resumed with 13 laps remaining, Bacon consistently clung to the top line as Grant searched low (turns 1 and 2), high (turns 3 and 4) and anywhere in between, but was unable to make up any significant ground.

"We got to where we weren't catching him," Grant remembers. "I started searching the racetrack trying to find something, anything that I could make work to get back to him. Running second is good and all, but you want to win these things. We were really good before the caution. We really fought air pressure under yellows and reds after that. The tires would get so low that when coming back to green, the frame rails were in the dirt and we'd start bucking around, which allowed Brady got away from us."

Bacon's momentum would be unheeded down the stretch and, after taking the white flag, appeared headed for certain victory. However, two-time Lakeside winner Robert Ballou had arrived in third and was engaged with Grant for the runner-up spot. The two made contact coming off turn four with Ballou and Grant making slight contact, scuffing each other as if they were competing in the chariot race from Ben Hur. Grant got squirrelly as he passed underneath the flagstand. Grant dove to the bottom of turn one while Ballou hopped onto the first turn cushion, which bounced him into the air and sent him into a series of pirouettes against the concrete wall. He was okay, but his race and a bid for a third Lakeside win in as many years was over.

Under the red flag period, Bacon and Grant were amongst those pondering changes to be made. In the end, however, both made the decision to enter the final standoff playing the cards they had been dealt.

"I knew we were pretty well set," a confident Bacon stated. "I knew we were going to lose a little tire pressure and didn't want to tighten it up any because I knew the air was going to tighten us up anyway. I just tried to not make any mistakes on the last restart. I slipped a little bit off two on the first lap of the restart, but was able to keep it underneath me to get a decent run through turns three and four and get our speed back up."

Grant was in a similar position, ultimately deciding to stand pat.

"I wanted to work on the shocks and tighten the thing up a little bit before the air pressure built up again on the restart," Grant said. "But, I was afraid to do it with the tires being so low when we went back green. I was fighting the car as it was, but it probably would have been better off if I'd have tightened the car up with the shocks a little bit and just hung on for the first lap of the restart. I was timid about doing it. I didn't want to turn the thing over on the restart!"

For the green-white-checkered two-lap sprint to the finish, Bacon knew what he had, but racing up front for the full duration of the event doesn't allow a driver to see what his fellow competitors running behind him have up their respective sleeves.

"It's definitely not ideal," Bacon admits. "It felt like a really long race being up front. The whole time, you really don't know what's going on behind you and what everyone else is doing, but we were pretty good on the restarts, so I felt that as long as I didn't stumble, or slip the tires, we'd be alright."

Bacon held true to form, running the middle to top groove to gap Grant behind him, who was unable to make up any ground and was never close enough to set up a final move on him for the win. Bacon sealed the deal with his 19th career series win (26th all-time) just a tick under a second over Grant, Chris Windom, Chase Stockon and Tyler Courtney.

Bacon admitted that he anticipated the track getting hard and slick after his hot lap session to begin the night. But, as time wore on, the track continually got faster and faster with new one-lap and eight-lap track records being established in the preliminary events. Bacon's car remained mostly tight from start-to-finish after attempts to free it up, but ultimately, the car was performing its best at the end.

"I was a little nervous at the beginning of the race," Bacon admits. "We were really tight, but as it turned out, everyone else was pretty tight too. We were better at the end. I felt I had to keep my tires underneath me. You can lose a lot of speed if you start spinning them. I guess our hard gamble of being a little too tight early paid off in the end."

Twenty-four hours after competing in a pavement 100-lap USAC Silver Crown race 736 miles away in Toledo, Ohio, Grant was behind the wheel of a completely different animal at Lakeside. As the only driver in USAC to have full-time rides in each of its three national divisions, Grant has found out just how rigorous it truly is, but the Ione, California native has found a way to adapt.

"We've been on the road a lot this year," Grant acknowledges. "I'm running a lot heavier schedule than I'm used to. I'm starting to settle in and get used to it now. I've been leaning on some people that have run heavy schedules like this before and getting advice on what I need to be doing to keep myself sharp. Earlier in the year, I think I was starting to get a little worn down just with all the travelling and being away from home and everything, but I feel good now and I'm loving it. I think part of its adapting and part of it is just making sure that when you have a moment to rest or a moment of quiet time, you take it. That's what I've been told to do, so that's what I do and it's been helping a lot."

Along with Grant, Chris Windom of Canton, Illinois was the only other driver to successfully tackle the challenge of the Toledo/Lakeside double. Though admittedly a bit sore after a physically-demanding two-day stretch, Windom collected a pair of third-place finishes in two settings that were nearly polar opposites of each other.

"Those two cars are completely different animals," Windom, Lakeside's KSE Racing Product Hard Charger, pointed out. "Tonight was fast right up on the wall and it was a tough track to pass on. If you missed a slide job or didn't clear a guy, you'd lose a lot of momentum. I think we were about a third-place car, which is where we ended up. I'll take it, especially coming from ninth."

Contingency award winners Saturday at Lakeside Speedway include Chase Stockon (ProSource Fast Qualifier), Kevin Thomas, Jr. (Simpson Race Products 1st Heat Winner), Justin Grant (Competition Suspension, Inc. 2nd Heat Winner), Robert Ballou (Chalk Stix/Indy Race Parts 3rd Heat Winner), Chris Windom (KSE Racing Products Hard Charger) and Patrick Budde (Wilwood Brakes 13th Place Finisher).

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USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: July 30, 2017 - Kansas City, Kansas - Lakeside Speedway

PROSOURCE QUALIFYING: 1. Chase Stockon, 32, 32 TBI-16.438 (New Track Record); 2. Justin Grant, 11, McGhee-16.597; 3. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-16.751; 4. Riley Kreisel, 90, Smith-16.809; 5. C.J. Leary, 30, Leary-16.851; 6. Brady Bacon, 63, Dooling/Hayward-16.851; 7. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 9K, KT-16.994; 8. Jarett Andretti, 18, Andretti-17.049; 9. Chris Windom, 5, Baldwin-17.161; 10. Tyler Courtney, 23c, TOPP-17.168; 11. Chad Boespflug, 69, Dynamics-17.239; 12. Josh Hodges, 74x, Hodges-17.444; 13. Ryan Kitchen, 21, Kitchen-17.654; 14. Brandon Stevenson, 0, Stevenson-17.657; 15. Rob Caho, Jr., 78, Caho-17.898; 16. Steve Thomas, 20, Thomas-18.025; 17. Patrick Budde, 90x, Budde-18.462; 18. Terry Richards, 18R, Richards-18.843; 19. Robert Bell, 71, Bell-18.866; 20. Mike Sosebee, 50LP, Sosebee-NT; 21. Chris Morgan, 81A, Goams-NT.

SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (8 laps) 1. K. Thomas, 2. Stockon, 3. Courtney, 4. Kreisel, 5. Kitchen, 6. S. Thomas, 7. Bell. 2:17.79

COMPETITION SUSPENSION (CSI) SECOND HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Grant, 2. Leary, 3. Andretti, 4. Boespflug, 5. Stevenson, 6. Budde. 2:17.84

CHALK STIX/INDY RACE PARTS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Ballou, 2. Bacon, 3. Windom, 4. Hodges, 5. Caho, 6. Richards. 2:17.20 (New Track Record)

FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Brady Bacon, 2. Justin Grant, 3. Chris Windom, 4. Chase Stockon, 5. Tyler Courtney, 6. C.J. Leary, 7. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 8. Josh Hodges, 9. Jarett Andretti, 10. Chad Boespflug, 11. Brandon Stevenson, 12. Robert Ballou, 13. Patrick Budde, 14. Rob Caho, Jr., 15. Terry Richards, 16. Robert Bell, 17. Steve Thomas, 18. Riley Kreisel, 19. Mike Sosebee, 20. Ryan Kitchen. NT
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FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-30 Bacon

KSE RACING PRODUCTS HARD CHARGER: Chris Windom (9th to 3rd)

WILWOOD BRAKES 13TH PLACE FINISHER: Patrick Budde

NEW USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Grant-1440, 2-Windom-1407, 3-Boespflug-1281, 4-K. Thomas-1259, 5-Stockon-1233, 6-Courtney-1232, 7-Leary-1082, 8-Bacon-991, 9-Dave Darland-937, 10-Thomas Meseraull-932.

NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: July 30 - Moberly, Missouri - Randolph County Raceway