SWEDESBORO, N.J. — The USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship brings the Eastern Storm tour to Bridgeport Motorsports Park’s four-tenths-mile dirt oval on Wednesday, June 15.
One driver who is seeking a repeat of past success at the track is Robert Ballou.
Ballou’s first career victory in the state of New Jersey during the 2015 USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car season led him to an Eastern Storm title and eventually to a USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National title later that year.
In last year’s edition of Eastern Storm, Ballou’s triumph at New Jersey’s Bridgeport Motorsports Park just so happened to propel him to capture a second Eastern Storm title.
He’d like to achieve the same pattern of success in his upcoming visit.
Three starts and three top-10 results have been the name of the game for Ballou at Bridgeport where he’s also finished sixth in 2018 and 10th in 2019.
His 2021 victory was performed in non-stop fashion, with him turning 30 laps in a track record time of 8:47.620.
Shane Cottle, a 2013 Eastern Storm winner at BAPS, is returning full-time to the Eastern Storm series once again in the Hogue No. 39. He led a race high of 16 laps and finished as the runner-up a year ago at Bridgeport.
Eastern Storm’s 2014 champ Brady Bacon has earned hard charger honors in all three of his Bridgeport USAC National Sprint Car starts, going 13th to fourth in 2018, 12th to seventh in 2019 and 14th to fourth in 2021.
Briggs Danner has won more USAC Rapid Tire East Coast Sprint Car features at Bridgeport than any other driver, having won five times since 2020. The current East Coast point leader turned in his best career USAC National Sprint Car finish at Bridgeport a year ago with a fifth.
Reigning USAC East Coast champ Alex Bright finished 17th in last year’s Eastern Storm run at Bridgeport. Bright won twice at the track in 2021, led 16 laps in this year’s season opener and also ran second there in late April.
Steven Drevicki, the three-time USAC East Coast Sprint Car champion, won a USAC SpeedSTR feature on the new Bridgeport layout in 2020. He traveled 19th to ninth there during Eastern Storm in 2021 and ran second with the East Coast series in this year’s opener.
Justin Grant has scored three top-10s in each of his visits to the track. Grant currently holds Bridgeport’s USAC one-lap track record of 15.799, set in 2021.
C.J. Leary, the 2019 Eastern Storm and USAC National Sprint Car champion, has recorded top-seven finishes in his last two Bridgeport appearances, tackling a fifth in 2019 and a seventh in 2021.
Timmy Buckwalter is a decorated modified victor at Bridgeport and was an eighth place finisher in Bridgeport’s Eastern Storm feature last year. Thomas Meseraull, a two-time Eastern Storm feature winner, made his lone Bridgeport appearance in 2018 where he finished ninth on the former three-eighths-mile configuration.
Returning to Bridgeport for Eastern Storm includes Jake Swanson, Logan Seavey, Charles Davis Jr., Brandon Mattox and Matt Westfall.
A group of newcomers is led by USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship point leader Emerson Axsom. Axsom is joined by fellow first-time Eastern Storm competitors Jadon Rogers, Alex Banales and Korbyn Hayslett, plus USAC East Coast regulars Kenny Miller III and Joey Amantea.