PERRIS, Calif. — Brady Bacon had a little luck on his side as he won Friday night’s USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Championship feature during the 25th Oval Nationals at Perris Auto Speedway.
Bacon became the leader for the third and final time when Justin Grant’s car faltered with a broken nozzle line. Bacon cruised past the rapidly slowing Grant on the last of the 30th circuits to claim his fourth victory of the season, but first since July.
“We’ve had a good enough car to win a bunch of races this year and it just never went our way,” Bacon explained. “Tonight, we probably didn’t deserve to win but we did, so we’ll take it after all the races we’ve lost throughout the year.”
Bacon led the opening three circuits before being overtaken by Tanner Thorson, then regained the top spot from him just past halfway, then saw his lead slip into the abyss with Grant getting by three laps from the end.
“I made a mistake there by letting him by,” Bacon recalled. “We just had a little luck on our side tonight and I was able to capitalize on that and get the win. I thought we had a pretty good car, but we just got a little tight there after those couple cautions, probably because of low air pressure, which caused it to push really bad off four. After he got me, I just tried to not make any mistakes and, if he did, I was going to be able to capitalize. Unfortunately for him, something happened, but we’ll definitely take it after the year we’ve had.”
As Bacon caressed a 2.089-second advantage with 10 laps remaining, Carson Short and Logan Williams were waging their own battle for the 17th position, which resulted in Williams enduring a rapid tumble after contact with Short and the wall sent him on a wild ride of which he walked away from.
While Thorson went on the attack in turn two for second with Grant on lap 22, Grant had his sights set on ripping away Bacon’s lead entering turn three. Grant ably pulled even with Bacon through the corners but was unable to make a successful go of it as of yet.
Grant tailed Bacon around the entire circumference of the half-mile dirt oval from his view a half-car length back as the two crossed underneath the flag stand with three laps to go. That’s precisely where Grant made a swift maneuver to the bottom of turn one and stole the lead away with the race’s distance waning in the balance.
Taken by utter and complete surprise just two laps later, Bacon pounced as Grant slowed to a crawl on the topside of the race track, clearing him between turns one and two as he cut underneath Grant with Thorson in tow to second.
Thorson nearly climbed Grant’s left-rear tire coming off turn two, which stifled him momentarily, and allowed Bacon to pull away.
Thorson finished second, ahead of Kevin Thomas Jr., C.J. Leary and Thursday’s winner Jake Swanson.
To see full results, turn to the next page.