MARNE, Mich. – Kody Swanson captured Saturday’s Auto Value Super Sprint non-winged event at Berlin Raceway in dominant fashion.
By doing so, Swanson answered a long-standing question. Could the V-6 engine find victory lane outside of the Little 500 and Anderson Speedway?
The answer, as it turned out, was yes.
Swanson made his second Auto Value Super Sprint start of the season, but his first this season in the Gene Nolen Beast V-6. Swanson has been victorious the past two years at the annual Little 500 at Anderson Speedway using the V-6 engine against the more powerful 410 V-8 engines.
The engine has proved successful at the quarter-mile high-banked speedway despite giving up nearly eight horsepower and not being given a weight break. Prior to Saturday’s event, many were skeptical of how competitive Swanson would be on the much larger seven-sixteenths-mile, semi-banked Berlin Raceway.
The non-winged sprint cars were making their first appearance at Berlin Raceway since a June 12, 2010 USAC National Sprint Car Series event that was won by Bryan Clauson. The event didn’t go off as planned as expected race-time temperatures, with a heat index of well over 100 degrees, were replace with rain showers that lingered well past 8 p.m.
A persistent Berlin Raceway staff worked tirelessly to get the speedway dried and race ready. After one quick hot lap session, the sprint cars went straight to their 30-lap feature event using only practice time to line the event up.
When the green flag waved third generation driver Nick Landon got the jump and lead the first two laps before Aaron Pierce took the lead from his sixth starting position. Swanson, who started on the inside of row three, got bottled up on the bottom of the track and took a few laps to sort things out and get into a groove.
Swanson immediately moved behind Pierce and appeared to be the faster car. On lap seven entering turn four, Pierce bobbled, which allowed Swanson to get under him exiting turn four. That was all Swanson needed and he led the rest of the way.
Swanson didn’t rest and appeared anxious the rest of the way as he encountered lapped cars. Swanson narrowly split two lapped cars in dramatic fashion late in the race for a quick three-wide pass going down the main straightaway. Swanson beat Pierce by 2.006 seconds to the checkered flag.
“In the feature I didn’t know what to expect,” explained Swanson. ”Berlin is a big track. Its round and fast, but it’s a momentum track. I felt the V-6 would be competitive here out of anywhere else we would go. It’s got a lot of corner speed here. It was my job to get it handling right for my guys. We threw a lot of changes at it on short notice. But we managed to get one.”
When asked why he never rested throughout the race, Swanson hinted he was unsure how close Pierce may have been late in the race.
“I was concerned how close he was. Seems there was so much fall off here,” Swanson said. “Aaron was really fast early. I wasn’t sure if I could catch him. I kinda got a break where he got loose a couple of laps and I was able to get by him. I wasn’t sure if he wasn’t just right on me. We were catching lapped cars and I didn’t wanna break my momentum any. I knew he was back there and is very aggressive in traffic. He split them three-wide on the start. I know what he’s capable of as well as the rest of the guys. You gotta stay on it if you get the lead.”
The finish:
Kody Swanson, Aaron Pierce, Jason Blonde, Taylor Ferns, Nick Landon, Derek Snyder, Kyle O’Gara, Charlie Schultz, Doug Dietsch, Teddy Alberts, Chris Randolph, Justin Harper, Tyler Roahrig, Joey Irwin, Nick Hamilton, Tom Geren.