MILLINGTON, Tenn. — Kody Swanson persevered a myriad of unusual occurrences to win Saturday’s Memphis 100, which kicked off the USAC Silver Crown Series season at Memphis Int’l Raceway.
At the conclusion of 2018, Swanson joined to Nolen Racing after the closure of DePalma Motorsports with whom he won four of the previous five Silver Crown championships.
During Friday’s practice, Swanson practiced both of Nolen’s cars. They had their primary car pulled apart on pit lane during the session after a brand-new driveshaft dealt them trouble. The team pulled out their backup and Swanson put some laps on it to make sure it was ready to run. Swanson jumped back into the primary with a new driveshaft and turned the fastest lap of the afternoon.
Fast-forward to race day and Swanson practiced in the primary before encountering what he described as a fluke engine part issue. He returned to the backup car and qualified it on the pole on the five-eighths-mile asphalt oval.
“I’m exhausted; I’m elated; I don’t even know what to feel,” Swanson said after winning the 100-lapper. “I’m very grateful. I haven’t been to my day job since Tuesday. I could see the writing on the wall that we were already in a corner then. We had guys that were there into the wee hours of the morning with me almost every night this week, then back at it the next day, just digging for all we were worth to be ready. We got one ready and dug deep enough to get the other one ready just in case. You hate to think you’d ever have a failure and need it, but we did and it was ready to come in off the bench and do a great job for us.”
Swanson led the first five circuits before David Byrne corralled Swanson and used an outside turn-one pass to clear him for the point. Eric Gordon capitalized and was able to grab second from Swanson just moments later on the back straightaway. By lap eight, Swanson was fourth as hard-charging Aaron Pierce slipped by as well.
Matt Goodnight was the lone wall contact of the weekend, pounding the SAFER barrier between turns three and four on lap 10 to bring out a lengthy yellow, that ultimately resulted in a red flag for the cleanup.
When racing resumed, Pierce was a man on a mission, sweeping by Gordon for second on the 25th lap and, one lap later, ripping by Byrne on the inside of turn three to snare the top spot.
Pierce constructed a one-and-a-half second lead until lap 36 when he fell to the wayside with a driveline issue, putting him on the sidelines for the remainder of the afternoon. That put Swanson and Bobby Santos running one-two.
One lap following a restart, Santos made his move on Swanson, swiping the lead with an inside turn-one pass just before the halfway mark, ultimately building a one-and-a-half second lead. Santos had won the series’ pavement opener in two-straight years and Swanson admitted tracking down Santos in a pavement Silver Crown car was no easy feat, but his faith and confidence never wavered.
“I did my homework enough to know that Memphis eats tires and that you need to be there at the end,” Swanson explained. “I was glad to be in a good spot early and get the lead, but Bobby was coming strong through the middle. I didn’t know if once he got the lead, we’d see him again. I felt like we kind of stabilized there and got a couple restarts and got a chance to just start over.”
That chance arrived on the lap-71 restart when Swanson tracked Santos’ path and shot to the lead on the inside off turn two. However, back in the pack, the machines of Travis Welpott (backstretch) and Austin Nemire (turn two) came to a stop to bring out the yellow, negating Swanson’s race-leading move.
With oil dry on the low line between turns one and two, Swanson had to alter his line entering and exiting the second turn as he went to work on Santos on the lap-79 restart. It didn’t take long for the fruits of Swanson’s labor to pay dividends as Swanson was able to occupy the low line into turn three to overtake Santos.
Swanson still had to work his way through traffic down the stretch, weaving his way through as Santos kept a close watch. Still, Swanson negotiated lapped traffic on the final circuit to secure his 25th Silver Crown victory.
Santos finished second after starting 21st on the grid due to having a push start on the initial start. Grant was third after charging from 20th following a right rear tire change prior to the start. Hamilton earned a career-best fourth after restarting from the tail following Goodnight’s early-race incident. Rookie Joey Schmidt took fifth in his first Silver Crown start.
“If I’ve learned anything over the last five years, it’s that the effort put in by the people you work with can make all the difference,” Swanson said. “This Nolen bunch, so many people have stepped up and really tried to put their best foot forward and give it all we had.”
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