By: Richie Murray – USAC Media
Rossburg, Ohio (May 8, 2021)………Amid Tyler Courtney’s amazing string of success at Eldora Speedway, perhaps none were more impressive than the performance he put on at the high-banked half-mile oval on Saturday afternoon to score his fifth consecutive triumph with the series at The Big E dating to 2018, this one worth $10,000.
Courtney led all 30 circuits from start to finish after starting from the pole in his Clauson-Marshall-Newman Racing/NOS Turbo – ZMax/Spike/Chevy, living up to his sponsor’s name by putting all but the top-six finishers a lap down at the finish line, thrashing the 22-car field in a caution-free race in which the Indianapolis, Ind. racer made USAC history.
By winning his fifth consecutive feature event at Eldora, Courtney became just the third driver in USAC National Sprint Car history to win five-in-a-row at one track. Jim Hurtubise won five-straight at the Terre Haute (Ind.) Action Track between 1960-62 and Steve Chassey did the same with five successive at Winchester (Ind.) Speedway in 1979.
“It’s very special,” Courtney said. “I never could’ve imagined winning one race at Eldora, let alone five in a row. We’ve got something figured out at this place. I love coming back here. Thanks to (promoter) Roger (Slack) and (track owner) Tony Stewart and everybody here at Eldora for putting up the extra money for the USAC guys.”
Additionally, Courtney became just the 14th driver to win at least 30career USAC National Sprint Car features. His 30th moved him ahead of Robert Ballou and Kevin Thomas Jr. for 14th on the all-time list.
Saturday’s event represented the first leg of Eldora’s first USAC National Sprint Car single day double feature since 1980. Extensive rainfall on Friday night created an extremely moistrous track surface, forcing postponement following qualifying, and shifting the remainder of the event to Saturday afternoon.
A rare daytime dirt show – a more common occurrence in decades past – presented a challenging racetrack to navigate. However, the conditions proved to be no barrier for Courtney.
By lap six of the 30-lap feature, Courtney had ramped up his lead to a full straightaway and was thrust into lapped traffic only eight laps in as he slipped through a four-wide, turn one sandwich alongside Carmen Perigo, Tanner Thorson and Stevie Sussex to extend his advantage.
High-riding on the paper-thin cushion located just inches from the outside concrete, Courtney whipped around traffic with mere inches to spare at moments, many times opting to go a lane higher than the car in front of him rather than throwing a slide job. However, he performed all of the above with perfect precision before reengaging his highwire act up against the concrete.
On the 28th lap, Courtney remained adamant to put an exclamation point on this one, rather than chocking up down the stretch, he split between the already lapped car of Brandon Mattox and the newly lapped car of 7th running Kevin Thomas Jr. and was beginning to bear down on 6th running Brady Bacon when the checkered flag flew.
Courtney wound up a whopping 5.477 seconds ahead of runner-up finisher Robert Ballou with Jadon Rogers, Justin Grant and Chris Windom rounding out the top-five.
“You always want to beat everybody,” Courtney admitted. “It’s really a combination of everything. We qualified really well and had great track position. Everything had to go perfect last night to catch the invert and sit on the front row. That makes the night go a lot smoother when you can start up front and run your own race from the drop of the green and have a really good car at the same time.”
Robert Ballou (Rocklin, Calif.) earned his best series finish of the season, finishing as the runner-up to Courtney aboard his Ballou Motorsports/Suburban Subaru – Berks Western Telecom/Triple X/Ott Chevy. For the 2015 series champ, it was his ninth consecutive top-ten finish in his last nine feature starts, tops in the series.
Jadon Rogers (Worthington, Ind.) had an impressive Eldora Speedway debut, finishing 3rd in his Randy Edwards/Edwards Concrete Construction – Auto Wheel & Rim – Engler/DRC/SPEC Chevy. It was second consecutive “podium” finish after earning a career best 2nd place result on April 17 at Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Ind.
In Fatheadz Eyewear Qualifying, held on Friday night before the rain, Brady Bacon earned his 39th career USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car fast qualifying time, tying him with Levi Jones for fourth all-time in series history.
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USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: May 7-8, 2021 – Eldora Speedway – Rossburg, Ohio – 1/2-Mile Dirt Track – #LetsRaceTwo
FATHEADZ EYEWEAR QUALIFYING: (Held on May 7) 1. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-15.006; 2. Logan Seavey, 5, Baldwin/Fox/Curb-Agajanian-15.029; 3. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-15.240; 4. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-15.330; 5. Jadon Rogers, 61m, Edwards-15.420; 6. Tyler Courtney, 7BC, Clauson/Marshall/Newman-15.481; 7. Chris Windom, 19, Hayward-15.497; 8. C.J. Leary, 77m, Michael-15.544; 9. Matt Westfall, 33m, Marshall-15.650; 10. Kevin Thomas Jr., 9K, KT-15.660; 11. Chase Stockon, 5s, KO-15.667; 12. Paul Nienhiser, 5N, KO-15.711; 13. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-15.761; 14. Jake Swanson, 21AZ, Team AZ-15.766; 15. Stevie Sussex, 77, Wingo-15.947; 16. Isaac Chapple, 52, Chapple-15.955; 17. Tanner Thorson, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-16.004; 18. Max Adams, 17G, On The Gass-16.072; 19. Steven Drevicki, 19s, DeGre-16.158; 20. Carmen Perigo, 21, Stehman-16.167; 21. Matt Goodnight, 39, Goodnight-16.197; 22. Evan Mosley, 27, Mosley-16.365; 23. Korbyn Hayslett, 1H, Hayslett-16.380; 24. Paul Dues, 87, Dues-16.475; 25. Dallas Hewitt, 18, Keen-16.511; 26. Ryan Barr, 21B, Barr-16.609; 27. Ryan Thomas, 77FR, Wingo-16.955; 28. Jack James, 99, James-17.034.
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr., 2. Justin Grant, 3. Brady Bacon, 4. Chris Windom, 5. Steven Drevicki, 6. Isaac Chapple, 7. Brandon Mattox, 8. Evan Mosley, 9. Dallas Hewitt, 10. Jack James. 2:16.14
COMPETITION SUSPENSION (CSI) SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. C.J. Leary, 2. Jake Swanson, 3. Chase Stockon, 4. Jadon Rogers, 5. Logan Seavey, 6. Tanner Thorson, 7. Carmen Perigo, 8. Korbyn Hayslett, 9. Ryan Barr. 2:21.620
INDY METAL FINISHING/INDY RACE PARTS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Robert Ballou, 2. Paul Nienhiser, 3. Tyler Courtney, 4. Matt Westfall, 5. Stevie Sussex, 6. Ryan Thomas, 7. Matt Goodnight, 8. Paul Dues, 9. Max Adams. 2:22.526
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (12 laps, top-7 transfer to the feature) 1. Isaac Chapple, 2. Brandon Mattox, 3. Korbyn Hayslett, 4. Dallas Hewitt, 5. Carmen Perigo, 6. Tanner Thorson, 7. Ryan Barr, 8. Paul Dues, 9. Evan Mosley, 10. Matt Goodnight, 11. Jack James, 12. Max Adams, 13. Ryan Thomas. NT
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Tyler Courtney (1), 2. Robert Ballou (4), 3. Jadon Rogers (2), 4. Justin Grant (3), 5. Chris Windom (9), 6. Brady Bacon (6), 7. Kevin Thomas Jr. (8), 8. Chase Stockon (11), 9. Matt Westfall (10), 10. Logan Seavey (5), 11. C.J. Leary (7), 12. Isaac Chapple (16), 13. Jake Swanson (14), 14. Paul Nienhiser (12), 15. Dallas Hewitt (21), 16. Steven Drevicki (18), 17. Brandon Mattox (13), 18. Tanner Thorson (17), 19. Stevie Sussex (15), 20. Carmen Perigo (19), 21. Korbyn Hayslett (20), 22. Ryan Barr (22). 10:06.253
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-30 Tyler Courtney.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Brady Bacon-692, 2-Justin Grant-673, 3-Kevin Thomas Jr.-646, 4-Robert Ballou-581, 5-Tanner Thorson-571, 6-C.J. Leary-571, 7-Chris Windom-562, 8-Jake Swanson-535, 9-Chase Stockon-425, 10-Paul Nienhiser-383.
OVERALL PROSOURCE PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Robert Ballou-52, 2-Thomas Meseraull-47, 3-Tanner Thorson-43, 4-Brady Bacon-36, 5-Chris Windom-34, 6-Buddy Kofoid-29, 7-Justin Grant-29, 8-Kevin Thomas Jr.-24, 9-Bryant Wiedeman-22, 10-C.J. Leary-21.
NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: May 8, 2021 – Eldora Speedway – Rossburg, Ohio – 1/2-Mile Dirt Track – #LetsRaceTwo
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
GSP Driving Performance of the Night: Isaac Chapple
Fatheadz Eyewear Fast Qualifier: Brady Bacon
Simpson Race Products First Heat Winner: Kevin Thomas Jr.
Competition Suspension, Inc. Second Heat Winner: C.J. Leary
Indy Metal Finishing / Indy Race Parts Third Heat Winner: Robert Ballou
Elliott’s Custom Trailers & Carts Semi Winner: Isaac Chapple
KSE Racing Products Hard Charger: Dallas Hewitt (21st to 15th)
Wilwood Brakes 13th Place Finisher: Jake Swanson
Saldana Racing Products First Non-Transfer: Paul Dues
By: Richie Murray – USAC Media
Rossburg, Ohio (May 8, 2021)………One-thousand, fifty-six days. That’s how long it had been since Robert Ballou last experienced the thrill of a USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car victory entering Saturday’s #LetsRaceTwo night cap at Rossburg, Ohio’s Eldora Speedway.
Thirty laps. That’s how long it took the Rocklin, Calif. native to return to the USAC win column for the first time since June 17, 2018 at Pennsylvania’s BAPS Motor Speedway.
To be more succinct, Eldora’s second #LetsRaceTwo A-Main of the day came down to the final five laps with Ballou fending off a furious charge courtesy of the seemingly unstoppable Tyler Courtney, who won the matinee earlier in the day, and had won every series race at the track dating back to 2018, a span of five races.
With a USAC record sixth-straight at The Big E in sight and the lap count dwindling, Courtney tracked down Ballou in short order, throwing everything in his arsenal to get by Ballou. At the line, the two past USAC National Sprint Car driving champions were separated by a single car length with Ballou prevailing over Courtney in what was the closest finish of the series’ season – 0.085 sec. – a win worth $10,000 for Ballou.
In reality, Ballou’s road back to the top is immeasurable. Shortly after the BAPS win, Ballou suffered a compound fracture of his right arm in a sprint car crash at Kokomo (Ind.) Speedway. Sidelined for a substantial stretch of time in which he endured both the pain and the rehab, the climb back has been leading to this crescendo at a venue in which he’s earned six of his 30 career wins with the series.
“It’s been a few years,” Ballou noted. “I broke my arm after my last win, and it’s been a humbling experience. You’re either on top or you’re on the bottom. There’s nobody that has more dedication in this sport than my team and my guys and everyone that’s behind me. We have a never-give-up attitude and we never back down.”
However, to get back on top, there are countless hurdles to overcome, and Ballou encountered one more just prior to the feature following a dominant heat race win earlier in the night, one that attempted to derail them and decide their fate prematurely.
“After that heat race, apparently, we blew up that brand new engine,” Ballou stated. “So, we thrashed until the (USAC officials) blew the (eight-minute horn). We got the motor changed, and with everybody here back at the trailer, it was a full-out team effort, and it was down to the wire. We got the thing started and still had a bunch of changes to make to try and keep up with this race track.”
Ballou’s entire crew and family on hand became involved in the process of the engine swap and had the Ballou Motorsports/Suburban Subaru – Berks Western Telecom/Triple X/Ott Chevy ready to roll off from the pole position while Courtney pushed off from the seventh position.
The afternoon feature saw Ballou finishing second to a dominant Courtney. The tables were turned in the night session with Ballou blasting away to his own early race superiority while Courtney took on the role of chaser.
By midway, Ballou was already making his way through lapped traffic, high, low and anywhere in between to build as much of a cushion as he could. Meanwhile, Courtney had carved his way to second by Chris Windom on the 15th lap, but still found himself a full straightaway behind and combing through the same traffic that Ballou, himself, had recently cleared.
By lap 23, Ballou’s full straightaway lead over Courtney had been sheared to a half-straight. Two laps later, the lead was a mere two car lengths, setting up a frenzied run to the finish. With both running the fence, the classic, patented Eldora slide job was at the forefront of Courtney’s repertoire as he tried to deliver the knell to Ballou twice between turns one and two with four laps remaining, then again with three to go. Yet, Ballou kept his foot on the throttle and escaped Courtney’s jabs utilizing the momentum up top.
On the 28th lap, the two encountered the lapped car of Isaac Chapple running the middle line entering turn three. Ballou dove low underneath Chapple while Courtney stayed up top. Ballou attempted to slide past Chapple and reclaim the high line up to the wall. Ballou first cleared Chapple by inches, then he and Courtney banged wheels, with Ballou’s right rear meeting face-to-face with Courtney’s left front. Courtney ricocheted off the wall, straightened it out, ducked low, then followed Ballou nose-to-tail into one.
Courtney shadowed Ballou all the way around the half-mile high banked dirt oval as the pair made their way to the white flag. Seemingly awaiting Courtney’s final slider attempt in turn one, instead, Courtney bounced his right rear off the fourth corner concrete coming to the white, stifling his plans, and putting him back into line on the high side just behind in his endless pursuit of Ballou.
On the final lap, Courtney remained behind Ballou by two car lengths, opting to tail Ballou to the top in turn three, then cut under off four. Ballou was smooth, steady and steadfast, and powered off the fourth corner to defeat Courtney by a car length to notch the win with Courtney second, Chris Windom third, series point leader Brady Bacon fourth and Paul Nienhiser scoring a best career USAC finish to round out the top-five.
Just hours after Courtney reached USAC Sprint Car victory number 30, Ballou reached the same number for 14th on the all-time list. Similarly, earlier in the day, Courtney became the first three-time #LetsRaceTwo feature winner, which Ballou matched later in the night. Both also swapped finishing position with Ballou the runner-up to Courtney in the afternoon and vice versa at night.
Ballou knew he still had what it takes to be at the level of winning consistently and being the thick of the championship race, but he also knew he needed the equipment to match. Safe to say, he’s found his match.
“Everyone’s questioning my ability to do this, but I just said, ‘if we can get a car that I can get comfortable with, we’ll be on top,’” Ballou said. “We switched to a Triple X chassis and got a couple new Don Ott engines and we’re just trying to plug away.”
Courtney was aiming to make USAC history on this night aboard his Clauson-Marshall-Newman Racing/NOS Turbo – ZMax/Spike/Chevy. A 6th consecutive USAC National Sprint Car win at Eldora would’ve made him the first driver ever to win that many in a row at a single track in series’ history. His five-straight USAC Sprint winning streak at one track gives him the shared distinction with Jim Hurtubise (1960-62 at Terre Haute) and Steve Chassey (1979 at Winchester).
Furthermore, Courtney (Indianapolis, Ind.) came a car length short of becoming the 21st driver to win multiple USAC National Sprint Car feature races on a single calendar day, and the first since to do so since Bud Kaeding at Terre Haute in 2001. Only twice had a driver won two USAC Sprint Car races in one day at Eldora: Pancho Carter in 1976 and Billy Cassella in 1979.
Besides Ballou and Courtney, Windom (Canton, Ill.) was the lone other driver to record two top-five finishes on Saturday. Windom earned a 5th in the afternoon and a 3rd at night in his Hayward Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – B & H Contractors – AMSOIL/DRC/Claxton Mopar.
Kevin Thomas Jr. (Cullman, Ala.) moved ahead of Pancho Carter by earning his 31st career Fatheadz Eyewear Fast Qualifying time with the USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Cars on Saturday night. That moved Thomas into a tie with Sheldon Kinser for 9th on the all-time series list in that category.
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USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: May 8, 2021 – Eldora Speedway – Rossburg, Ohio – 1/2-Mile Dirt Track – #LetsRaceTwo
FATHEADZ EYEWEAR QUALIFYING: 1. Kevin Thomas Jr., 9K, KT-15.441; 2. Chase Stockon, 5s, KO-15.486; 3. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-15.494; 4. Tanner Thorson, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-15.516; 5. Chris Windom, 19, Hayward-15.547; 6. C.J. Leary, 77m, Michael-15.574; 7. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-15.596; 8. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-15.601; 9. Matt Westfall, 33m, Marshall-15.615; 10. Tyler Courtney, 7BC, Clauson/Marshall/Newman-15.633; 11. Logan Seavey, 5, Baldwin/Fox/Curb-Agajanian-15.635; 12. Jake Swanson, 21AZ, Team AZ-15.636; 13. Stevie Sussex, 77, Wingo-15.772; 14. Jadon Rogers, 61m, Edwards-15.867; 15. Paul Nienhiser, 5N, KO-15.867; 16. Max Adams, 17G, On The Gass-15.914; 17. Evan Mosley, 27, Mosley-16.000; 18. Carmen Perigo, 21, Stehman-16.056; 19. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-16.151; 20. Isaac Chapple, 52, Chapple-16.185; 21. Steven Drevicki, 19s, DeGre-16.186; 22. Matt Goodnight, 39, Goodnight-16.375; 23. Korbyn Hayslett, 1H, Hayslett-16.473; 24. Chris Phillips, 6, Phillips-16.637; 25. Dallas Hewitt, 18, Keen-16.698; 26. Jack James, 99, James-16.728; 27. Paul Dues, 87, Dues-16.853; 28. Tyler Kendall, 20, Kendall-16.883.
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Tyler Courtney, 2. Stevie Sussex, 3. Justin Grant, 4. Tanner Thorson, 5. Kevin Thomas Jr., 6. Brandon Mattox, 7. Max Adams, 8. Matt Goodnight, 9. Dallas Hewitt, 10. Tyler Kendall. 2:12.797
COMPETITION SUSPENSION (CSI) SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Robert Ballou, 2. Chris Windom, 3. Jadon Rogers, 4. Isaac Chapple, 5. Korbyn Hayslett, 6. Jack James, 7. Logan Seavey, 8. Evan Mosley, 9. Chase Stockon. NT
INDY METAL FINISHING/INDY RACE PARTS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Paul Nienhiser, 2. Jake Swanson, 3. Brady Bacon, 4. Steven Drevicki, 5. Matt Westfall, 6. C.J. Leary, 7. Carmen Perigo, 8. Chris Phillips, 9. Paul Dues. 2:18.958
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (12 laps, top-7 transfer to the feature) 1. C.J. Leary, 2. Matt Goodnight, 3. Carmen Perigo, 4. Max Adams, 5. Paul Dues, 6. Dallas Hewitt, 7. Chris Phillips, 8. Brandon Mattox, 9. Evan Mosley, 10. Tyler Kendall, 11. Jack James, 12. Logan Seavey. 3:39.912
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Robert Ballou (1), 2. Tyler Courtney (7), 3. Chris Windom (3), 4. Brady Bacon (5), 5. Paul Nienhiser (8), 6. Justin Grant (2), 7. C.J. Leary (9), 8. Jake Swanson (11), 9. Isaac Chapple (16), 10. Steven Drevicki (17), 11. Kevin Thomas Jr. (6), 12. Max Adams (14), 13. Paul Dues (22), 14. Matt Westfall (10), 15. Dallas Hewitt (21), 16. Stevie Sussex (12), 17. Matt Goodnight (18), 18. Chris Phillips (20), 19. Carmen Perigo (15), 20. Korbyn Hayslett (19), 21. Jadon Rogers (13), 22. Tanner Thorson (4). 9:30.305
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Brady Bacon-763, 2-Justin Grant-734, 3-Kevin Thomas Jr.-697, 4-Robert Ballou-659, 5-Chris Windom-635, 6-C.J. Leary-628, 7-Tanner Thorson-602, 8-Jake Swanson-591, 9-Paul Nienhiser-449, 10-Chase Stockon-440.
OVERALL PROSOURCE PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Robert Ballou-52, 2-Thomas Meseraull-47, 3-Tanner Thorson-43, 4-Brady Bacon-37, 5-Chris Windom-34, 6-Buddy Kofoid-29, 7-Justin Grant-29, 8-Kevin Thomas Jr.-24, 9-C.J. Leary-23, 10-Bryant Wiedeman-22.
NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: May 21-22, 2021 – Lakeside Speedway – Kansas City, Kansas – 4/10-Mile Dirt Track
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
GSP Driving Performance of the Night: C.J. Leary
Fatheadz Eyewear Fast Qualifier: Kevin Thomas Jr.
Simpson Race Products First Heat Winner: Tyler Courtney
Competition Suspension, Inc. Second Heat Winner: Robert Ballou
Indy Metal Finishing / Indy Race Parts Third Heat Winner: Paul Nienhiser
Elliott’s Custom Trailers & Carts Semi Winner: C.J. Leary
KSE Racing Products Hard Charger: Paul Dues (22nd to 13th)
Wilwood Brakes 13th Place Finisher: Paul Dues
Saldana Racing Products First Non-Transfer: Brandon Mattox
Top Gun Fastest Heat Race Winner: Robert Ballou