BRANDON, S.D. — Christopher Thram, Aydin Lloyd and Matt Steuerwald topped a thrilling Mother’s Day Opener presented by Northland Buildings Inc. on Sunday night at Huset’s Speedway.
Thram took advantage of a unique opportunity two thirds of the way through the 25-lap Cressman Sanitation 410 Outlaw Sprint Cars main event for his third career victory at the track.
“It’s better to be lucky than good,” he quipped. “I don’t know what was more surprising, that four of the leaders got taken out or that grandma got down here so fast. She must have been flying from the stands. I had a lot of help from the Lord up above, but we’ll take them how we can get them. I feel like we were decent tonight. Obviously in the feature we weren’t the class of the field, but we were in position.”
Austin McCarl paced the field for the first 16 laps before Ryan Timms used a slide job in turns one and two to pass for the top spot while the drivers duked it out in traffic. The duo was side by side in turns three and four with the top prevailing for Timms exiting turn four.
Seconds later, Timms collided with a car he was attempting to lap entering turn one and both cars slid up the track. McCarl, third-running Mark Dobmeier and fourth-running Sam Henderson all came to a stop near the wall in turn one following the incident. Thram, who was running fifth, inherited the lead for the restart on Lap 18 and held off 16th-starting Kaleb Johnson for the victory.
“We kind of buried ourselves in qualifying,” Johnson said. “We seemed to get better as the night went on. We got some fortunate breaks there. Hopefully we can come back next week and be one spot better.”
Riley Goodno rounded out the podium.
“We were good in ways,” he said. “I think we were better on the long runs. I couldn’t figure out how to get my tires under me on the restarts. Overall, it was a good night. This is a good start to the season.”
Justin Henderson was fourth and Jacob Peterson advanced from 12th to fifth.
Lloyd led the final 13 laps to earn his second career triumph at the track during the 20-lap Heser Auto & Detailing RaceSaver Sprint Car Series main event.
“In clean air I knew we were about equal,” he said. “I saw my opportunity there on the bottom and I had to pounce on it. Leading that thing I didn’t know if my pace was quick enough. That was friggin’ awesome. First night out the car was a rocket ship. I could take it anywhere I wanted to.”
Owen Carlson led the first seven laps before Lloyd capitalized in traffic. He took the top spot on Lap 8 and built nearly a five-second lead during the non-stop feature before ending with a margin of victory of 1.264 seconds.
Carlson was the runner up with ninth-starting Brandon Bosma maneuvering to third. Andrew Sullivan was fourth and Cole Vanderheiden fifth.
Steuerwald captured the Nordstrom’s Automotive Late Model Street Stocks season opener for the second straight season.
“It worked out,” he said. “Four years ago I won on this day. Last year I won on this day. Today I won on it again so I guess it must be an opening night thing here.”
While Steuerwald officially led the distance for every lap, the final moments were exciting with Dustin Gulbrandson challenging. Gulbrandson passed Steuerwald for the lead exiting turn two on the final scheduled lap, but the lone caution of the race came out to negate the pass. Gulbrandson pulled next to Steuerwald twice after the green-white-checkered restart, finishing only 0.095 seconds behind Steuerwald.
Shaun Taylor placed third with Tim Dann advancing to fourth. JJ Zebell drove from 10th to fifth.
