WILMOT, Wis. — Wisconsin is calling and twice this weekend, the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship will heed its call on back-to-back nights.
Wilmot Raceway’s three-eighths-mile dirt oval is first up on Saturday night, June 22. Angell Park Speedway is on deck next for a showdown at the Sun Prairie third-mile dirt oval on Sunday night, June 23.
USAC National Sprint Car drivers and teams have just concluded a run of six races in a six-night span between June 11-16 in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. After a five-day break, it’s right back to work in Wisconsin.
In that six-race span, inevitably, much has changed. USAC Eastern Storm champ Mitchel Moles is amid a personal best run of consistency in his USAC career to date. Meanwhile, Brady Bacon has reemerged as a championship contender.
Furthermore, the race at the top of the standings has tightened up from 106 between first and second on June 1 to a mere 77 markers separating the top five entering Wisconsin.
C.J. Leary has risen from third to second in the standings since the beginning of Eastern Storm, just 21 out of the lead. Bacon has lifted himself up by his bootstraps from fifth to third. Moles has upped himself from ninth to sixth. Jake Swanson has moved up one spot into the top 10.
The biggest mover and shaker from Eastern Storm was Mitchel Moles. With only a single top-five finish to his credit in his first 16 starts of the season, Moles and his Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports team found their groove and reeled off five consecutive top-five finishes to end the week and earn the Eastern Storm championship.
Moles became the furthest back driver in USAC National Sprint Car points to win Eastern Storm since Bryan Clauson came from outside the top-10 to capture the title in both 2012 and 2016.
During last year’s Wisconsin visit, Brady Bacon and his Dynamics, Inc./Hoffman Auto Racing team reached never before seen heights.
With their 2023 victory at Wilmot Raceway, Bacon and Dynamics/Hoffman became the winningest driver/entrant combo in USAC National Sprint Car history. The pairing’s 41st win together surpassed the long-held record of driver Pancho Carter and team owner Steve Stapp who achieved 40 victories with the series between 1973-80.
Bacon and his team now stand at 48 career USAC National Sprint Car wins. With a complete Wisconsin sweep this weekend, this pairing could become the first to reach the 50 mark.
Despite the utter disappointment of how their Eastern Storm championship hopes unfolded, Bacon and team are certainly on the upswing, finishing inside the top-four in nine of their last 11 series starts, which has pushed them up to third in points, just 45 out of the lead. It’s a remarkable feat once you consider they were 218 points out of the lead just a little over a month ago.
Robert Ballou enters the weekend having won the two most recent USAC National Sprint Car events at Angell Park Speedway, host of this Sunday’s series event.
Ballou was a monster as he charged up through the pack. He came from ninth to first to win in 2015 on his way to the series championship after clearing C.J. Leary for the lead on lap 18 of 30.
Almost identically, in 2022, Ballou raced from eighth to the win in just seven laps, working his way into the top spot past early race leader Davey Ray before going relatively unscathed and relatively unchallenged for the balance of the 30-lap distance.
Logan Seavey has held the USAC National Sprint Car point lead since Feb. 13 and has maintained a great deal of distance from the rest of the field ever since.
Despite an up-and-down Eastern Storm, Seavey managed to win twice to thwart the misfortunate nights from clouding his entire “storm” experience. But now that the Eastern Storm stretch is over, the summer solstice is here, the days are long, the nights are plentiful, and the relentless pursuit of a championship never subsides.
Last September, Seavey won a USAC National Midget event at Angell Park, and this coming Sunday, he’ll try to become the first driver to win both a USAC National Sprint Car and Midget feature at the famed venue.
Even a win on Saturday at Wilmot would put him in rarified air. Only five drivers have won both a USAC National Sprint Car and USAC National Midget feature in the state of Wisconsin: Dave Darland, J.J. Yeley, Ken Schrader, Parnelli Jones and Tom Bigelow.
It’s a full slate of USAC action in Wisconsin this weekend with the USAC Silver Crown cars on Friday, June 21, at Madison Int’l Speedway. That’s followed by back-to-back USAC National Sprint Car events on Saturday, June 22, at Wilmot Raceway and Sunday, June 23, at Angell Park Speedway in Sun Prairie.
As expected, three drivers are set to contest all three events this weekend: Logan Seavey, C.J. Leary and Justin Grant. Both Seavey and Leary have won on USAC soil in their careers.
Seavey gained his first Wisconsin USAC win during last September’s Firemen’s Nationals at Angell Park in a midget. Leary scored a USAC Silver Crown triumph in 2022 at Madison. Grant has run a best of third in a midget twice at Angell Park and once at Madison with the Silver Crown car where he also started from the pole in 2018.