BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — One year ago, Bloomington Speedway very nearly became the home of Briggs Danner’s first career victory during NOS Energy Drink USAC Indiana Sprint Week Presented By Honest Abe Roofing.
After leading the initial 14 laps of the 2023 round of the series at the quarter-mile red clay oval, the Allentown, Pa. racer went on to finish second. But this time around, he was adamant to not let déjà vu repeat itself despite heavy pressure down the stretch of Sunday night’s Bob & Sheldon Kinser Memorial ISW finale at Bloomington, which had been rescheduled following a rain out two nights earlier on Friday.
Meanwhile, a triumphant beginning was bookended by an unexpectedly eventful evening that nearly spelled disaster for Logan Seavey. Despite a lap 11 accident in which he flipped and suffered extensive front end damage, Seavey (Sutter, Calif.) returned to the field and soldiered on to a 15th place result to finish off his first career Indiana Sprint Week championship by a 13-point margin.
As far as Danner, he finally broke through for his first career USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship feature win during the Eastern Storm opener in June of this year on his home soil of Pennsylvania at Grandview Speedway. Since that point, Danner had led four USAC National Sprint Car feature races and was in contention to win all of them.
The tales of recent heartache for Danner and his Hogue Racing Enterprises/E. Schneider & Sons – Boulevard Truck Repair/DRC/Rider Chevy have been devastating. Danner was leading on the final lap in June at Williams Grove Speedway when he ran out of fuel. At Port Royal Speedway, he bounced off the turn two wall while leading with eight laps to go and was forced to bow out with damage. At Action Track USA, he finished second to Logan Seavey in a photo finish, just .043 seconds behind at the stripe. Just earlier this week at Lawrenceburg Speedway, he was leading with 13 laps to go when he pulled into the infield under caution with an engine issue.
Close but no cigar had become an unwanted mantra for the team throughout the week. That is, until Sunday night, when Danner became the first Pennsylvanian to win an Indiana Sprint Week feature in the 37-year history of the series which dates back to 1988.
“I’m just super happy for the guys and for everybody involved. We’ve been so close so many times, and to give that away late would’ve been really hard. We’re happy to get that one under our belt and happy to win in Indiana.”
Danner started his 30-lap quest from the outside of the front row and slipped under pole sitter Rylan Gray to establish the race lead from the word ‘go.’ Daison Pursley followed into second past Gray in turn three on lap four while Seavey slotted into third in the same manner on the fifth go around.
On the 10th lap, while working lapped traffic, Danner skidded up atop the lip of turn four, losing all his ground to Pursley who closed up and even pulled ahead of Danner on entry into turns one and three. However, Danner was able to eke out enough momentum to stave off Pursley’s charge, managing to keep Pursley’s pursuit at bay by a half car length at the stripe on the completion of lap 10. Moments later, the caution was displayed for ninth running Robert Ballou who came to a stop backwards in turn two. Ballou was able to restart and finish 16th.
On the 11th restart, seemingly, the on-track activity was going to take a brief breather due to the absence of lapped traffic. However, that notion quickly proved to be incorrect. Seavey, the Indiana Sprint Week point leader who was running third at the moment, snagged the turn four cushion and tumbled over the banking, resulting in extensive front end damage to his Abacus Racing/Honest Abe Roofing – Rockwell Security – Indy Custom Stone/DRC/Stanton Chevy.
“I just really feel like an idiot,” Seavey admonished himself. “My car was really good, and I thought I was a bit better than the two up front. I was just trying to take my time, but I got in there at a bad angle, and as I was looking for the cushion, Daison hit it and got tight, and I was out of the gas and didn’t know where I was at on the racetrack. I tried to throttle up to save it and I just yarded myself even further off the racetrack.”
Seavey carried a fairly comfortable ISW point lead of 44 into the feature, and merely needed an 18th place finish or better to clinch the title. Now, after all that had transpired, that entire scenario completely hung in the balance. However, during the red flag period, a massive community of teams came together to assist the Abacus Racing crew on their repairs, which were extensive on the front end. When all was said and done, repairs were made and Seavey returned to the track, albeit at the back of the field with 20 laps remaining. What at first may have seemed like a longshot return became a reality as the result of the old proverb, “it takes a village.”
“To everybody in the pits who helped out, that was unbelievable to see,” a thankful Seavey acknowledged. “There were like 50 people around our pit. (Once I got back on track), I knew I just needed to go by a few (cars) and I feel like I went by quite a few of them right away.”
Still, for Seavey’s championship to slip away, he had to finish 19th or worse while Bacon had to win. Or else. A runner-up finish for Bacon wasn’t going to cut it as the points stood, and now the pressure was on to perform for Seavey to reach that threshold of 18th while Bacon had to win.
On the second attempt at a lap 11 restart, Pursley took grasp of the moment and shot past Danner on the low side of turn three. Nonetheless, in the ensuing laps, negotiating lapped traffic quickly became paramount. On lap 20, Danner swung to the outside of Pursley on the back straightaway. On the bottom, Pursley became boxed in by Weston Gorham (25th) and Frankie Guerrini (24th), while up top, Danner discovered a clear path to the lead. That one particular moment unfolded in a split second, and essentially, foretold the story of the eventual outcome.
”I think Daison made a few less mistakes than I did, but in traffic, I was able to put myself in a good position to get it back,” Danner explained. “But I did not want to see that late race restart come.”
What Danner is alluding to is a turn two tangle between Kyle Cummins (19th) and Guerrini (20th) that necessitated a yellow flag on lap 28, just three short laps from the finish line, and came just moments after Danner thwarted Pursley’s attempt to overthrow him from the top spot by driving around Pursley’s slider attempt in turns one and two which saw them go three-wide through the corner along with the lapped car of Joey Amantea on the low line.
Now, with a clear line of vision in front of him due to the absence of lapped traffic, Danner also had an inkling on what the plan behind him was going to look like for the final three laps of green, and he was ready to meet the challenge.
“I knew Daison was going to slide me into one if he could,” Danner acknowledged. “I just had to get a good start and not make mistakes. It’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself and it was a tricky curb to run.”
Danner met the pressure and delivered a response as cool as the other side of the pillow, disallowing Pursley to even get close enough to pose a challenge to his reign at the top of the scoring pylon. Danner finished off the performance with a 0.953 second margin of victory over Daison Pursley, Brady Bacon, Kevin Thomas Jr. and Rylan Gray.
Meanwhile, for the 15th place finishing Seavey, it was a contrasting kaleidoscope of pride and a tinge of disappointment at the same time due to the task becoming more cumbersome than first anticipated. But considering this is a brand new team taking in its first Indiana Sprint Week experience, perspective shows just how much of an accomplishment this truly is.
“We really didn’t know what to expect coming into the year,” Seavey admitted. “We built this brand new team and clicked off 13 wins right away. I just feel like an idiot because there’s no reason we didn’t get 14 tonight and I was the reason, so that feels really bad. It just sucks to give away wins because these wins are really hard. I was just trying to be patient, but it bit me last night and it bit me really hard tonight. But overall, this is really special and shows what this team is truly made of. They had to dig really hard. It surely wasn’t perfect, but we got it done.”
Kevin Thomas Jr. (Cullman, Ala.) passed 58 cars throughout the course of the seven-race Indiana Sprint Week series. That earned KTJ top honors as the Indiana Sprint Week ProSource Passing Master.
Mitchel Moles (Raisin City, Calif.) advanced 20th to 7th in the feature to pick up J & J Trucking Hard Charger honors for the feature which was worth a cool $200. His plus-13 movement through the field also earned him a $177 7th place feature finisher bonus from Spire Motorsports.
Sam Hinds (Westfield, Ind.) charged his way into his first career USAC National Sprint Car feature field. Hinds climbed from 9th to 5th in his heat race to transfer into the feature, and with it, he was honored with the ProSource Hard Work award.
Daniel Whitley (Ferndale, Calif.) was on the cusp of transferring into his first career USAC Indiana Sprint Week feature when, midway through the semi-feature, he was forced out with a flat tire. However, for his misfortune, Whitley received a new right rear Hoosier Tire courtesy of Sam McGhee Motorsports.
Entering Bloomington, Rylan Gray’s best career USAC National Sprint Car feature finish was 12th. On this night, he brought home a career best result of 5th. For that performance, he earned the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.
USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship, Bloomington Speedway, Bloomington, Ind., Aug. 4, 2024
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-11.755; 2. Ricky Lewis, 41, Stensland-11.802; 3. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-11.922; 4. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-11.940; 5. Daison Pursley, 21AZ, Team AZ-11.996; 6. Max Adams, 63, F & F-12.009; 7. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-12.016; 8. Rylan Gray, 06, Gray-12.039; 9. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-12.055; 10. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-12.108; 11. Chase Stockon, 5s, KO-12.118; 12. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-12.128; 13. Logan Calderwood, 4J, Ford-12.135; 14. Kale Drake, 2B, 2B Racing-12.157; 15. Hunter Maddox, 24m, Maddox-12.166; 16. Shane Cottle, 2E, Epperson-12.194; 17. Stephen Schnapf, 39F, Three Chet’s-12.247; 18. Brayden Fox, 53, Fox-12.252; 19. Anton Hernandez, 5, Baldwin/Fox-12.266; 20. C.J. Leary, 15x, BGE Dougherty-12.271; 21. Frankie Guerrini, G3, F & F-12.337; 22. Matt Westfall, 33m, Marshall-12.338; 23. Jadon Rogers, 66, Amati-12.375; 24. Harley Burns, 16, Britt Aero-12.383; 25. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-12.396; 26. Joey Amantea, 88J, JPA-12.403; 27. Kyle Shipley, 4u, AJR-12.438; 28. Kobe Simpson, 21K, Simpson-12.443; 29. Gabriel Gilbert, 10G, GGR-12.458; 30. Chance Crum, 26, Crum-12.545; 31. Carson Garrett, 15, BGE Dougherty-12.592; 32. Weston Gorham, 71w, Gorham-12.626; 33. Daniel Whitley, 04, Burton-12.653; 34. Sam Hinds, 71H, Hinds-12.669; 35. Matt Thompson, 26T, Thompson-12.735; 36. Evan Mosley, 27, Barkdull-12.738; 37. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-12.782; 38. Todd Moule, 26AU, Moule-12.992; 39. Troy Carey, 45N, Carey-13.056.
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Daison Pursley, 2. Justin Grant, 3. Brady Bacon, 4. Mitchel Moles, 5. Frankie Guerrini, 6. Daniel Whitley, 7. Brandon Mattox, 8. Gabriel Gilbert, 9. Stephen Schnapf, 10. Logan Calderwood. NT
ROD END SUPPLY SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr., 2. Matt Westfall, 3. Joey Amantea, 4. Brayden Fox, 5. Sam Hinds, 6. Ricky Lewis, 7. Max Adams, 8. Todd Moule, 9. Chance Crum, 10. Kale Drake. NT
T.J. FORGED THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Hunter Maddox, 2. Chase Stockon, 3. Logan Seavey, 4. Jadon Rogers, 5. Briggs Danner, 6. Anton Hernandez, 7. Carson Garrett, 8. Matt Thompson, 9. Kyle Shipley, 10. Troy Carey. NT
CAR IQ FOURTH HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. C.J. Leary, 2. Robert Ballou, 3. Shane Cottle, 4. Rylan Gray, 5. Kyle Cummins, 6. Weston Gorham, 7. Kobe Simpson, 8. Evan Mosley, 9. Harley Burns. NT
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (12 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Ricky Lewis, 2. Max Adams, 3. Weston Gorham, 4. Kobe Simpson, 5. Brandon Mattox, 6. Kale Drake, 7. Gabriel Gilbert, 8. Todd Moule, 9. Matt Thompson, 10. Troy Carey, 11. Evan Mosley, 12. Logan Calderwood, 13. Anton Hernandez, 14. Kyle Shipley, 15. Daniel Whitley, 16. Carson Garrett, 17. Harley Burns. NT
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Briggs Danner (2), 2. Daison Pursley (3), 3. Brady Bacon (6), 4. Kevin Thomas Jr. (7), 5. Rylan Gray (1), 6. C.J. Leary (9), 7. Mitchel Moles (20), 8. Chase Stockon (13), 9. Shane Cottle (15), 10. Justin Grant (12), 11. Jadon Rogers (19), 12. Ricky Lewis (10), 13. Max Adams (11), 14. Kobe Simpson (22), 15. Logan Seavey (5), 16. Robert Ballou (14), 17. Hunter Maddox (8), 18. Joey Amantea (21), 19. Kyle Cummins (4), 20. Matt Westfall (18), 21. Kale Drake (25-P), 22. Sam Hinds (24), 23. Brayden Fox (16), 24. Frankie Guerrini (17), 25. Weston Gorham (23).