ROSSBURG, Ohio — Chris Windom won the USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship feature during the 40th annual 4-Crown Nationals Saturday night at Eldora Speedway.
Windom won the midget portion of the event for the second consecutive year.
The victory was a sense of relief of a much-needed first feature victory of any kind this season, which came after a tumultuous weekend and culminated by taking his CB Industries/NOS Energy Drink – PristineAuction.com – K & C Drywall/ Spike/Speedway Toyota to a $10,000 score at the half-mile dirt oval.
During Friday’s USAC Silver Crown practice, Windom hit the turn-one wall and flipped several times, ending his weekend prematurely in the champ cars. Furthermore, he missed the final transfer spot by one position in the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship portion of the program earlier Saturday evening.
Windom became the sixth driver to reach five overall victories at the 4-Crown after previously winning the USAC Silver Crown race in 2013 and ’16, the USAC Sprint Car main event in 2013 and now the USAC Midget feature in both 2021 and ’22. He joins the fairly exclusive category along with Jack Hewitt (19), Courtney (7), Dave Darland (7), Vogler (5) and Tracy Hines (5).
“I love this place, and it feels great to get this done because it definitely hasn’t been the 4-Crown I wanted in the other classes,” Windom acknowledged. “Laps around here are key, and it’s taken me a lot of years to get good at running the fence here. It’s definitely tough to do and to hit your marks, especially when you’re out front by yourself for that long, it’s kind of easy to get distracted from stuff. You’ve got to stay laser-focused when you’re running that close to the fence, but this car was so good tonight.”
Windom started fourth while outside front row starter Chance Crum took the early advantage by leading the first two laps. Windom steadily edged forward and tore around the outside right up against the outside wall and into the lead on lap three.
Trouble came early for Moles whose Saturday night performed a complete 180-degree turn from his success 24 hours earlier. Running fifth, Moles got into the turn four wall and tumbled nose-to-tail down the banking.
On the lap nine resumption, Crum made a charge on the bottom to pull even with Windom for the race lead, but Windom was able to stave off the pressure as he kept his foot on the throttle wide-open up top.
Point leader Buddy Kofoid followed suit with Windom and rode the highwire around Crum and into the runner-up spot on lap 14.
Disaster struck on lap 17 as second running Kofoid’s right rear tire came apart upon entry on the turn one cushion. Suddenly, Kofoid’s car veered right and went nose first into the outside wall, whipped around like a propeller in mid-air directly into the path of third-running Crum who plowed in with no place to go.
The high-speed collision sent both drivers flipping several times before coming to a rest upright in their mangled machines. Thankfully, both drivers emerged from the wreckage and walked away under their own power.
From that point forward, the story was written with the contest well in Windom’s hands as he closed out the victory by a 3.462-second margin over Bryant Wiedeman who grabbed second after dicing it up with Alex Bright late in the going.
Bright came home third with RMS Racing teammates Justin Grant fourth and Thomas Meseraull fifth.
The Boxscore
USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship, Eldora Speedway, Rossbur, Ohio, Sept. 24, 2022
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS / COMPETITION SUSPENSION (CSI) FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. C.J. Leary (#25L Petry), 2. Logan Seavey (#19 Reinbold-Underwood), 3. Buddy Kofoid (#67 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 4. Mitchel Moles (#89 CBI), 5. Taylor Reimer (#25K Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 6. Alex Bright (#25 Malloy), 7. Jacob Denney (#25m Malloy), 8. Hayden Reinbold (#19AZ Reinbold-Underwood). 2:17.92
PIT STOP USA/ROD END SUPPLY SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Chris Windom (#89x CBI), 2. Thomas Meseraull (#7x RMS), 3. Justin Grant (#2J RMS), 4. Chance Crum (#26 Rudeen), 5. Tanner Carrick (#97K Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 6. Cannon McIntosh (#08 Dave Mac-Dalby), 7. Bryant Wiedeman (#01 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 8. Kaylee Bryson (#71 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian). 2:17.49
FEATURE: (25 laps): 1. Chris Windom (4), 2. Bryant Wiedeman (8), 3. Alex Bright (3), 4. Justin Grant (10), 5. Thomas Meseraull (12), 6. Taylor Reimer (11), 7. Cannon McIntosh (16), 8. C.J. Leary (7), 9. Logan Seavey (1), 10. Hayden Reinbold (13), 11. Kaylee Bryson (14), 12. Jacob Denney (15), 13. Tanner Carrick (9), 14. Buddy Kofoid (5), 15. Chance Crum (2), 16. Mitchel Moles (6).