KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Brady Bacon left no room for doubt.
After starting fifth, “The Macho Man” stormed into the lead in just four laps and dominated the rest of the way in Thursday night’s non-stop 30-lap USAC sprint car feature at Lakeside Speedway.
It was the second series win in a row for the four-time series champion and second in a row at Lakeside Speedway after a 2017 triumph to go along with previous Sprint Bandits TNT scores at Lakeside in 2008 and ’09.
“The track was a lot more like it was 12 years ago when we used to run here and have a lot of success, the banking has changed a little bit and it was spotty like it was tonight in the past,” Bacon explained after taking the checkered flag by a 4.595-seconds aboard the Hoffman Racing No. 69 sprint car.
While Bacon gridded the field inside the third row, Emerson Axsom and Logan Seavey led the way to the green flag. Bacon shot into the lead battle right away and after a pair of laps dicing in three-wide fashion for the point with Axsom and third-stater C.J. Leary, he took command and distanced himself from the field.
“Three and four had me kind of scared in traffic, I didn’t know how slow I was getting in lapped traffic,” Bacon said. “I felt really good in one and two on the bottom and found it early and stuck to it.”
In his wake, Axsom fought off Robert Ballou for the runner-up position until the 19th round when the latter raced into second.
Ballou held second to the line, explaining that, “You just have to go where they’re not. Brady and those guys were the class of the field, it took us a while to get to second.”
Seavey made a late move around Axsom to snare the show position, stating that, “I just got a really bad start and fell back to fifth, once I got confident at the end I ran down C.J. (Leary) and then Emerson (Axsom). I just have to do a better job earlier in the race.”
Axsom crossed the stripe fourth with Leary rounding out the top five.