Defending champion Brady Bacon is consistent on the race track, and little has changed within his high-caliber team. Much can be said for his main nemesis Chris Windom. Windom will be back at Hayward Motorsports, with Austin Wenrich and Derek Claxton handling the wrenches.
In spite of the late season swoon, Justin Grant and TOPP Motorsports are reunited, with Justin taking on more responsibilities with the team. Chase Stockon had a strong year with KO Motorsports and the veteran has reason for optimism heading into the new year. There is little question that one must behave differently when you take your own equipment into the fray. Look for the defending Indiana Sprint Week champ to have a big year. With team manager Kent Schmidt at the helm, the group will expand with 2019 MOWA sprint car champion Paul Nienhiser taking off the wing and contending for Rookie of the Year honors.
Colorado‘s Garrett Carson, who we also see in the family midget, plans on racing approximately one half of the scheduled events with KO.
2019 king C.J. Leary started the 2020 season with a new team. This year it is the same song, different verse. Leary will be paired with owner Bill Michael, who has been one of the top owners in the southwest for years, with notable success coming with R.J. Johnson. Last March Leary and Michael teamed up and scored back-to-back wins at Arizona‘s Canyon Speedway. The car will be maintained in Leary‘s Greenfield, Indiana shop.
Perennial frontrunner Kevin Thomas Jr. had a difficult season by his standards, but has made a move to shore up his squad. Notably, USAC Mechanic of the Year Davey Jones will be back with Thomas and one can bet the two old-school types will get the ship righted quickly. It has probably taken a bit longer than it should have, but Kyle Cummins, who will be back with Hank Byram‘s Rock Steady team, has finally garnered the recognition that he deserves. While he is undoubtedly the man to beat at Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Indiana, as the 2020 season demonstrated he can win anywhere.
California‘s Jake Swanson was a regular presence with USAC when racing resumed in 2020, and since then he has purchased a home in Danville, Indiana and has completed his shop where Team AZ will operate. Now with a better book on those places where USAC competes, look for the affable Swanson to find victory lane.
Mario Clouser has had great success in midgets, both on dirt and pavement. Last year he found victory lane in WAR series action and was impressive in 12 USAC sprint car starts. In 2021 Mario will join team EZR, headed by veteran owners Fred Zirzow and Chuck Eberhardt.
Popular veteran Dave Darland will be with Baldwin Brothers Racing, but it remains unclear how many dates this pairing will run.
In an interesting development, the outstanding young open-wheeler Buddy Kofoid competed at Florida for endurance racing ace Chris Dyson.
There is little reason to suspect that the title chase will look any different in 2021. Grant and his team will need to perform at a high level through November. It will be interesting to see how Stockon will fare with a full season at KO Motorsports. Nonetheless, Windom and Bacon are in familiar settings, both men are unflappable, and both never seem to blink when the season-ending hardware is there for the taking.
SILVER CROWN SERIES
The USAC Silver Crown Series is a unique animal that operates at a different cadence. It is championship-style racing and traditionally teams have some breathing room to prepare the big cars for long distance grinds. In many ways, the 50th season of Silver Crown racing was the most unusual ever. A total of four races, evenly split on dirt and pavement, were contested in a two-week span in 2020. In the end, a new champion was crowned, while Kyle Larson, as he did everywhere, got fans out of their seats.
The first trip to Selinsgrove Speedway set the tone for the year. It looked like C.J. Leary had his third career win in the bag when, out of nowhere, Shane Cottle was hot on his heels. How Cottle even got in position to win would require several paragraphs to explain. Yet, nothing underscores the nature of this style of racing more than the fact the Shane had somehow survived. He started on the last row after qualifying with a sour engine. Later he was against the guard rail with a flat tire. When action resumed after the red flag situation at hand, he had 43 laps to get to the front. With the cords showing on his tires, Cottle moved to the outside of Leary on the white flag lap and streaked to his second career win.
It had been nearly 13 years since he had won at Du Quoin, Illinois. As an emotional Cottle noted in victory lane, it was the first win for owner Curtis Williams and crew chief Malcom Lovelace. The race featured a career-best third-place finish for Kyle Robbins, while newcomers Bryan Gossel and Carmen Perigo rounded out the top five.
One of the storylines for the race was the performance of Kody Swanson. The five-time champion just couldn‘t seem to move forward. While Swanson had an uncharacteristic performance in the opener, when all assembled a week later at the Salem Speedway in southern Indiana, everyone knew that he was still the man to beat. In a masterful drive. Swanson battled his longtime pavement foe Bobby Santos III and scampered home. On this evening, he won his fifth consecutive Joe James-Pat O‘Connor Memorial, captured his 30th pole and won for the 30th time. All were records.
Six nights later the tour was on the pavement at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis. Under the guidance of General Manager Kasey Coler, there was a buzz that felt a bit like days past. In recent years, the Dave Steele Carb Day Classic has offered a lucrative bonus to a driver willing to start at the back of the field. While Kody Swanson has always been concerned about a championship, his brother Tanner has never felt constrained by a point battle. By taking the risk, Tanner had been exciting in recent performance but came up a bit short. In 2020 there was no fooling around. To get to victory lane it looked like it was going to be a battle of brothers, but Kody had a mechanical problem that ruined his night. Tanner won for the eighth time on the famed oval and became the all-time Silver Crown leader in that category.
Next came the first of two major surprises for 2020. It turned out the Hoosier Hundred at the Indiana State Fairgrounds mile was not dead after all. COVID had delayed the construction that would ruin the one-mile oval for auto racing and the fairground was in need of revenue. Still, a political minefield was left to navigate, not the least being that the race would be run on the same day as the Indianapolis 500.