Bell dominates early in first night with Kunz 67 sprint car ride, before dropping from event
Brady Bacon celebrates in victory lane after picking up the MOWA Sprint Car Series presented by Casey’s General Stores win at Tri-City Speedway. It was Bacon’s first winged 410 sprint car win.
By Dewain Hulett
MOWA Media
PONTOON BEACH, Ill. (April 18, 2014) – Tri-City Speedway always seems to bring a few big names to the party, and a surprise or two, when the Midwest Open Wheel Association Sprint Car Series presented by Casey’s General Stores makes an appearance at the 3/8th mile speedway, in Pontoon Beach, Ill.
Friday was no different, as Brady Bacon made the haul to race with the wing, while Christopher Bell made his first 2014 appearance with the series driving a Keith Kunz owned 67 410 sprinter in its maiden voyage.
Bacon would eventually take his first career winged 410 Sprint Car feature win, in the first of four stops for the series at the famed track this season, but the win didn’t come without high drama and a little luck, to go along with an extremely fast racecar.
Neither Bell or Bacon were able to win a heat race, but Bell found himself in the six car, six lap, dash which sets the front three rows of the feature event. Both were actually in the same heat race, finishing second and third respectively behind A.J. Bruns in the third heat.
Bell would go on to dominate the dash. In just six laps he was within a few car lengths of sixth place running Ryan Kempin, on his way to wining the event and giving him the pole starting position for the main event.
While the heats and dash had very little in the way of drama, the feature made up for it right from the start, when Paul Nienhiser, who started eighth, spun in turn one collecting Ian Madsen and Cole Wood, both of whom got upside down.
Madsen, a former winner with the series at Tri-City, and Wood were both able to put new wings on and fix their cars enough to rejoin the field. Nienhiser was able to do the same, after a caution on the next attempt to start the race bought him enough time to finish repairs on his machine.
Nienhiser brought out his second caution on lap four when he spun in turns three and four, to end his night.
On that restart, Madsen, who had already climbed to near the top 10, clipped Ryan Bunton entering turn one sending Madsen upside down top first into the outside retaining wall. Madsen was fine, but the car was done for the night, as was Bunton’s machine which suffered a broken front end in the incident.
While all that was going on, Bell was dominating out front, but began showing a little smoke just a few laps into the event.
Bell entered lapped traffic on lap six and by lap 13 had lapped up to 10th place in the 30-lap, 22-car field.
Just one lap later, as he worked to complete lap 14, Bell quickly pulled off the track in turn 4. The smoke had become heavier throughout the event, and finally forced the 67 machine out of the race. Afterward, Bell acknowledged that an oil line had come loose on the car, forcing him from the event.
With Bell dropping out, Bacon took command. He had started seventh, and was nearly as dominating as Bell. Bacon ran away, picking up right where Bell had left off, leaving the rest of the field to battle for second.
By the end of the 30-lap race, Bacon had lapped all the way up to seventh place, as he passed Scotty Neitzel coming out of turn four to the checkered flag.
Jimmy Hurley, who set his car up a little too loose for the early stages of the race, faded some at the start, but his ride came to life in the second half of the event. Hurley had a good battle with Bruns eventually getting by with about five laps to go to take the second spot.
Bruns then was forced to hold off the advances of Joey Moughan to take the third spot. Moughan, who finished fourth, had started 17th. Moughan was fast throughout the event and battled over the last five laps with Bruns, but could not get around Bruns to take a podium spot.
The only other major incident of the evening came in the first heat race of the night, when Jimmy Bridgeman and Jim Perricone got together in turns three and four. Both cars got upside down and both were done for the evening.
John Dines, the leading rookie points gatherer for 2013 with the MOWA series, had engine trouble in hot laps, and was also forced to retire for the evening.
RESULTS
Feature: 1. Brady Bacon, 2. Jimmy Hurley, 3. A.J. Bruns, 4. Joey Moughan, 5. Korey Weyant, 6. Cole Wood, 7. Jerrod Hull, 8. Scotty Neitzel, 9. Ben Wagoner, 10. Levi Curry, 11. Ryan Kempin, 12. Chris Urish, 13. Logan Faucon, 14. Joe B. Miller, 15. Seth Motsinger, 16. Kory Bales, 17. Christopher Bell, 18. Jeremy Standridge, 19. Austin Brown, 20. Ryan Bunton, 21. Ian Madsen, 22. Paul Nienhiser.
Dash: 1. Christopher Bell, 2. A.J. Bruns, 3. Jimmy Hurley, 4. Korey Weyant, 5. Levi Curry, 6. Ryan Kempin.
Heat: 1. Levi Curry, 2. Ryan Kempin, 3. Jimmy Hurley, 4. Scotty Neitzel, 5. Logan Faucon, 6. Kory Bales, 7. Jim Perricone, 8. Jimmy Bridgeman, 9. John Dines.
Heat 2: 1. Korey Weyant, 2. Paul Nienhiser, 3. Jerrod Hull, 4. Ian Madsen, 5. Cole Wood, 6. Ben Wagoner, 7. Joey Moughan, 8. Jeremy Standridge.
Heat 3: 1. A.J. Bruns, 2. Christopher Bell, 3. Brady Bacon, 4. Ryan Bunton, 5. Austin Brown, 6. Chris Urish, 7. Seth Motsinger, 8. Joe B. Miller.
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