OCALA, Fla. — Brady Bacon may want to petition USAC to let him start ninth all season after once again driving from the fifth row to claim back to back AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship series wins at Bubba Raceway Park Saturday night.
Just like Friday night, Bacon’s Hoffman/Longworth No. 69 was the class of the field, as he nearly won his heat before slowing a lap prematurely, came back to handily claim the semi-feature and then ran down early leader Chase Stockon to claim the $5,800 win.
Chris Windom was a close second after a series of slide job challenges to Bacon on the black, dusty three-eighths-mile oval, with Logan Seavey rallying for third ahead of Stockon and Justin Grant.
Seavey and Stockon led the field to green, with Stockon using his outside starting position to blast to the lead over Seavey and Windom. A lap-two yellow flag for a harmless spin kept the field closed up and allowed Windom to shoot by Seavey on the restart. They were still in that order when Sterling Cling went around on lap seven, but by then Bacon stood fifth, ready to work on the heavy hitters.
The restart saw Bacon dispose of Carson Short in turns one and two, then dive under Seavey as they hit turn three to show third. He continued his charge, disposing of Windom on lap 12, then used his trademark top to bottom drive off turn four a lap later to take command from Stockon.
Bacon was lapping cars in bunches through the late teen’s as Windom and Seavey dueled behind him and by lap 25, he’d pulled out to a full straightaway lead. But a frontstretch melee on lap 28 that saw Katlynn Leer flip at the flagstand brought a red flag, negating Bacon’s solid lead.
Windom mounted a huge charge into turn one on the restart, sliding in front of Bacon only to lose the lead again when Bacon crossed under him down the backstretch. Windom made the same daring move the next time around, with the same result, and Bacon was home free.
“I thought I’d hold the bottom and he couldn’t slide me, but he got it in there,” said Bacon. “Luckily I was really good off the top and could turn back under him.”
“I figured he’d do that,” added Windom. “It’s a hard move to pull off here. I was just hoping he’d make a mistake when I took his line away, but it didn’t happen.”
As for Seavey, the young Californian said “the track came to me and I finally figured out where to run. The bottom slowed down, so I moved to the top and got going forward again. Unfortunately, Brady figured out all that before the rest of us.”
Short led the second five that included fast-timer C.J. Leary, Kevin Thomas Jr., Kyle Cummins and Dennis Gile.
To see full results, turn to the next page.