{"id":55023,"date":"2018-09-10T11:25:49","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T18:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=55023"},"modified":"2018-09-10T11:27:42","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T18:27:42","slug":"bacon-sizzles-at-indy-dirt-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/bacon-sizzles-at-indy-dirt-track\/","title":{"rendered":"Bacon Sizzles at USAC Race at Indy"},"content":{"rendered":"

USAC took over Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Wednesday and Thursday, September 5 and 6, to christen the Brickyard\u2019s first dirt-track race. For the first official competition on The Dirt Track inside IMS\u2019 third turn, it was a two-night affair with action from start to finish.<\/p>\n

Although the second evening of festivities had to begin much later than expected when the first rain storm – one that would affect the NASCAR events scheduled for the weekend by forcing them to run on Monday – impacted the Driven2SaveLives BC39 presented by NOS Energy Drink, it didn\u2019t prevent the race from happening before an enthusiastic, large crowd.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday night, a series of 12 heat races was capped by a 20-lap Stoops Pursuit race, won by 15-year-old Zeb Wise, who outlasted everyone attempting to catch and pass him for the win. As the youngster from Angola, Ind. came to the white flag, he went on offense to slide by then-leader Alex\u00a0 Bright in the fourth turn, earning himself a $1,500 payday for the win. Wise\u2019s victory came in the No. 39BC race car, a fitting tribute to the late, great racer, Bryan Clauson, for whom the feature race is named.<\/p>\n

\"Bacon
BC39 action photo by Chris Jones IMS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thursday\u2019s feature races had to be pushed back by several hours as afternoon rains inundated the quarter-mile dirt oval. A series of eight 10-lap qualifier contests set the 26-car field for the 39-lap USAC P1 Insurance Midget National Championship competition, and once the weather moved out, it was time for the A-Main, which pushed off just past midnight.<\/p>\n

With pole man Kevin Thomas Jr. dictating the pace on the bottom of the track for the first 13 laps of the race, he was hounded by cushion rider Tyler Courtney, who pressured Thomas lap after lap before the pole sitter created some separation. On the 14th lap, a six-car pile-up between the third and fourth turns changed the complexion of the race.<\/p>\n

Once the battle resumed, Brady Bacon assumed P2 and put pressure on the leader as the pair gapped the field. On Lap 20, Bacon tried to muscle his way through, did for a bit but was pushed back to second place by Thomas, who still held the bottom line. As the pair hit lapped traffic, Thomas widened his line off the bottom of the track to keep Bacon at bay.<\/p>\n

\"Bacon
Brady Bacon photo by Chris Jones IMS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Traffic would be the undoing of Thomas, who slid out in the fourth turn on the 31st lap, allowing\u00a0 Bacon to assume a lead he\u2019d not relinquish. The duo put on a \u201cTokyo drift\u201d display with Chad Boat also joining the action. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t leaving the door open for me until it got a little slicker,\u201d Bacon explained. \u201cHe kept opening it wider and wider and I was getting a better run. I just had to time it right. He had a really good racecar too and traffic could have gone in any number of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traffic definitely decided the race with Bacon remaining on the high side, pinning Thomas and Boat to the bottom behind lapped racers in the first two turns. Bacon, a two-time USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car champion was unflappable, keeping both Boat and Thomas at bay in the final laps to earn the $15,000 payday by a half-second over the Boat-Thomas duo, Tyler Courtney and hard-charger Christopher Bell, who took fifth place after starting 17th.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we had a really good car from the start,\u201d Bacon said. \u201cI knew it was going to be a little tight at the beginning – we had some wheelies going on – but I knew it was going to come to me.\u201d As he saw the blackness of a groove coming to the dirt,\u00a0 Bacon could throw his No. 76 FMR Racing midget wherever he wanted it to be.<\/p>\n

\"Bacon
Brady Bacon photo by James Black IMS<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This Driven2SaveLives BC39 presented by NOS Energy Drink victory was Bacon\u2019s first USAC midget win in 2018. During Victory Lane celebrations he said, \u201cThis is definitely up at the top. It\u2019s a first-year event, but it\u2019s [also] the first win on the dirt track at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and no one can ever take that away.\u201d Thanking his team of Bob East, Brad Noffsinger and Frank Manafort, Bacon acknowledged, \u201cThis one\u2019s probably going to take a while to sink in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

USAC took over Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Wednesday and Thursday, September 5 and 6, to christen the Brickyard\u2019s first dirt-track race. <\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":55025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,3470,5470,27,5029,22],"tags":[6221,6225,6226,6061,955,6223,3708,6224,3828,6222],"class_list":["post-55023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dirt-track-racing","category-news","category-off-road","category-off-road-racing","category-racing","category-event-coverage","tag-bc39","tag-brady-bacon","tag-chad-boat","tag-driven2savelives","tag-indianapolis-motor-speedway","tag-kevin-thomas-jr","tag-off-road-racing","tag-tyler-courtney","tag-usac","tag-zeb-wise"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/BC39-action-photo-by-Chris-Jones-IMS-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-ejt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55023"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55029,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55023\/revisions\/55029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}