SALISBURY, N.C. – Alex Bright stayed patient during Tuesday night’s 30-lap non-winged micro feature at Millbridge Speedway, and it paid off with a $2,000 check during the TRD Micro Showdown opener.
Bright spent most of the race as the chaser, trailing outside polesitter Austin Quick from lap two to lap 20, but used a perfectly-timed turn four slide job to wrest the lead away with 10 to go and never looked back.
Once he got out front, Bright opened up a 1.235-second margin on his way to the victory over Quick, with fast qualifier Chase Cabre completing the podium.
The win was Bright’s first victory at the sixth-mile dirt oval, and he credited “getting up on the wheel” with helping him get the job done on Tuesday night.
“I really think the car was there the entire race. Just, once he got me, I figured out that I needed to get on the gas a little bit more and drive it a little bit harder,” Bright said. “I adjusted the shocks a little bit, but I pretty much just started driving her harder and it worked. This No. 20 Rodota Trucking & Excavating/Evo/Lineman Motorsports Hyper was a rocket tonight and hopefully we can get it going well tomorrow with a wing on it also.”
While Bright wouldn’t give away any trade secrets, he did note that he took a few lessons away that will serve him well in Wednesday night’s $5,000-to-win winged micro feature.
“I learned a lot about the track and how it might end up, but car wise, I think it’s going to be a clean slate for everyone tomorrow,” Bright said. “I’m looking forward to that and ready to put on a show again.”
Quick qualified second in his flight, won his heat race and his qualifier, but ended up second when it mattered most.
“Being able to follow someone, honestly, was where he got me,” noted Quick. “When you run second you can get not so comfortable and see where you can judge your speed better. So that’s where he snookered me. His corner entry was way better than mine. I just got comfortable and was like, ‘all right, I don’t really feel anyone and don’t really hear anyone, so I think I’m good here.’ And that’s my fault for not searching enough.
“At the end of the night, that’s where the race was lost.”
Behind the show position, Brian Carber crossed fourth and Emerson Axsom was fifth.
Two major incidents marred the 30-lap non-winged main event, with a four-wide scramble going wrong in turn one on the 11th lap and sending Nash Ely into a double flip in the center of the corner to start.
That crash was followed by a vicious incident on lap 14, where Brent Crews smacked the outside wall off the fourth corner and started flipping down the frontstretch, before being clipped by James Morris just before the start/finish line.
Morris then went for a series of rolls in his own right before coming to rest on the inside of the first turn.
Both Crews and Morris climbed from their cars under power and walked away from the accident scene.
Those two crashes brought the H3 Photography Flip Count to four through two days of competition.
Wednesday’s TRD Micro Showdown program will be headlined by a $5,000-to-win winged micro sprint feature, with Intermediate and Open outlaw karts joining in the fun.
Pit gates open at 3 p.m., with the drivers meeting set for 5:15 p.m. and hot laps starting at 6 p.m.
To view complete race results, advance to the next page.