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Cummins honkin outta 4

What a finish, KTJ dominates the race & Kyle Cummins wins in the last corner. One of ISW's greatest passes (not according to KTJ though).
justmyhumbleopinion

If you weren't there, you missed it!

One of the best races I have ever seen. You had Cummins and KTJ fighting the whole race a little ways behind those 2 had Sunshine battleing just about everybody else and I mean everyone else lol everywhere you looked there was slide job city going on , Track was fast tacky all night and no dust Thanks drivers for such great races:8:, and USAC for a great series:8:, and Tommy and crew for a wonderful fast tacky track :9:

Originally Posted by HARFprez:
What a finish, KTJ dominates the race & Kyle Cummins wins in the last corner. One of ISW's greatest passes (not according to KTJ though).
justmyhumbleopinion

Agreed, and he did it without any contact or slide job.

Awesome race last night. The track was pretty juiced up and there was great racing all over the track all night long.

Kudos to KTJ and Cummins. Clean racing all the way through the feature and those two were clearly the class of the field. I know KTJ wasn't happy with the outcome and I was a bit confused on how laps were scored since they did indeed run 31 laps instead of the scheduled 30 but oh well, still an amazing race. USAC tweeted it had to do with their new scoring system. Either way, well worth the drive over from the Louisville area and the price of admission.

As for the IOW member that claimed Haubstadt always has the smallest crowd and shouldn't be the final round of ISW...that was by far the best racing I've seen all week and as for the crowd....see attached photos

Originally Posted by Nate:
Awesome race last night. The track was pretty juiced up and there was great racing all over the track all night long.

Kudos to KTJ and Cummins. Clean racing all the way through the feature and those two were clearly the class of the field. I know KTJ wasn't happy with the outcome and I was a bit confused on how laps were scored since they did indeed run 31 laps instead of the scheduled 30 but oh well, still an amazing race. USAC tweeted it had to do with their new scoring system. Either way, well worth the drive over from the Louisville area and the price of admission.

As for the IOW member that claimed Haubstadt always has the smallest crowd and shouldn't be the final round of ISW...that was by far the best racing I've seen all week and as for the crowd....see attached photos

I couldn't agree more Nate, it would be hard to top that one! I didn't understand how they scored laps either.
However another Great Night at the Class Track!!:22:

USAC's response to the same question on Twitter last night. Great night of racing, incredible crowd, and a pretty slick pass by Kyle on the last lap. Left the track at 11:45 and there were was still tons of people in the pits. Awesome!!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...7d1f521860.png

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Before the first lap was even completed, you just knew the stars were aligned for something very special to take place. KT Jr. quickly grabbed the lead, from his second row starting position, with Kyle Cummins in tow. And lap after lap after lap, Thomas was flying around Tri-State Speedway and back up through the field, once he reached them. He couldn't shed Cummins, though. Throughout the entire race, Kyle made countless runs at him. He would catch him, sometimes even pull up beside him, then KT would reassert him self and pull away a bit. Especially when they came into heavy lapped traffic. Kyle Cummins is renowned for rifling through lapped traffic during great battles at tracks like Haubstadt. But, at this current time, there's not a better racer out there at blowing though a track full of backmarkers than KT, Jr (see 2016 Sprint Car Smackdown). As the laps wound down, Thomas looked to be gaining enough of an advantage to probably hold Cummins off, but Kyle is relentless and never gives up, so everybody knew he still had a few tricks left up his sleeve. Then there was that last yellow, on the white flag lap, for the car of Dave Darland, which had broken. So we would have a green-white-checkered restart to the finish. Cummins would have one more chance at KT. This time his shot would be on open track. A 2 lap drag race to the checkered. As they took the green and headed to one, you could see Kyle had decided to move to the top and was going to try to win this thing by going around the leader. One the first lap, there wasn't room enough for him to make a move arounfd the leader and KT remained the leader as the took the white flag, again. This time, he had tremendous mometum coming out of turn two, pulled even with the 9K car, in the middle of the backstrech and grabbed the lead as they raced into turn three. But, just that quick, KT launched into a big slider and was back in front of the 3R coming out of turn 4. But, the slider was big enough that he lost a little bit of speed in that turn, as he was completing the move. How Thomas didn't stuff it into the wall with such a daring move, is a testament to his driving abilities! Kyle, then quickly adjusted and dove below him as they sprinted towards the flagstand. Kyle got there first, but it was so close. The crowd was on their feet, with their arms in the air and screaming! Usually, large numbers of race fans head for the exits, as the checkered flag flies at the end of a sprint car race. On this night, very many of them stayed to see Kyle Cummins jump out of the car in victory lane and celebrate. A lot of them were still stunned from what these drivers had just put them though and others no doubt wanted to hear what the winner of this Instant Classic had to say. They had just witnessed history.

This battle at the front was so riveting that a few very important things were lost in all the chaos. First was a few of the battles that went on back through the field. Tyler Courtney was another of the field's aggressors. His battles with Thomas Meseraull and then with Justin Grant for the last podium spot, were both intense and sustained, hard fought victories. It took a hell of a drive to earn that last spot in victory lane.

The second thing that was remarkable was the track work that took place after sprint qualifications and modified hot laps/group qualifying. During qualifications the track had a lot of moisture in it. Cars running anywhere near the middle were sliding up the track quite a bit. A few hit the wall and several others came very close. Going to Haubstadt for many years, you know that anything other than absolute perfection in unacceptable to the guy that runs this place and you knew what the next thing we would see after these sessions were over would be. So they rolled out the track equipment, completely dug up the racing surface and slowly, but surely ran it back in. About two laps into the first sprint heat it was plain to see, that whatever imperfections had been in the racing surface, had been erased. And for the rest of the night, the track was fast, tacky and racy. The stage had been set for excellent heat race action and then for Kyle and Kevin to roll out and deliver their Oscar winning performances. It was such a great race and one of the best finishes I've ever seen!

Jerry

Best race I've seen in a while. Best races of the series thus far

Great race,I just think checkered should have been thrown when they were coming outta 4 instead of a yellow. To me they(flag man,USAC) determined the outcome

Originally Posted by MOORESVILLETRUCKER:
Great race,I just think checkered should have been thrown when they were coming outta 4 instead of a yellow. To me they(flag man,USAC) determined the outcome

so to you the flagman should have left Darland slowly rolling on track for 3 laps? I used to work for MSCS scoring and when a yellow came out we watched to see how many cars crossed the line before the leader crossed if wasn't 3 then we went back to the previous (last scored) lap. There was 3 laps left that's why there was a green white checkered finish.
Also if the flagman would have thrown the checkered when you say he should have thr race would have been 3 laps short. Who I go to a 30 lap race I expect to see a 30 lap race not 27 laps. ;)

David Mitchell Those pictures of just the front straight grandstand, the backside holds even more people and was as packed as the front. Sure looked small to me LOL Maybe you should go back to forecasting the weather in place of accounting :8:

Originally Posted by jim goerge:
David Mitchell Those pictures of just the front straight grandstand, the backside holds even more people and was as packed as the front. Sure looked small to me LOL Maybe you should go back to forecasting the weather in place of accounting :8:

You're giving this guy way more attention than he deserves.

Originally Posted by jim goerge:
so to you the flagman should have left Darland slowly rolling on track for 3 laps? I used to work for MSCS scoring and when a yellow came out we watched to see how many cars crossed the line before the leader crossed if wasn't 3 then we went back to the previous (last scored) lap. There was 3 laps left that's why there was a green white checkered finish.
Also if the flagman would have thrown the checkered when you say he should have thr race would have been 3 laps short. Who I go to a 30 lap race I expect to see a 30 lap race not 27 laps. ;)

Jim,

Respectfully I think you are wrong in your assessment of the finish. As Mooresville Trucker correctly stated they were on the homestretch coming to the checkered when the yellow flag was waved. If you look on USAC's twitter they stated that there would be one to go at the point when the yellow flew. They then stated that their new policy is to have a green, white, checker finish so that is why they ran two laps after the caution. The leaders were off of turn four coming to the checkered flag when Darland blew up in turn two while running 10th. To me also there was no reason to throw the yellow instead of the checkered flag. He was still rolling and almost everyone had cleared him at that point and the leaders would have slowed after the checkered with no problems avoiding Darland who rolled over to turn four by that time anyhow. It made for an exciting finish for sure but I don't feel the caution was necessary either. I like both drivers so I have no dog in this fight or am showing any favoritism for one driver over another.

Bruce Eckel

Just to make things clear ...this was not the flagmans call. They have a race director just like many other sanctioning bodies it is that persons call. I'm not putting blame on the race director just informing everyone how things work. This coming from someone who has been in both positions.

Mo

Saturday was my first ever trip to Haubstadt, and I simply cannot wait to go back! Track prep was on point, racing was on point and the place fully lived up to the hype. I think this lands in my top 10 tracks I have ever been to, and possibly my top 5. The spectacular finish definitely helped that cause. Thanks again Indiana! :9:

Originally Posted by WinglessLovers:
Jim,

Respectfully I think you are wrong in your assessment of the finish. As Mooresville Trucker correctly stated they were on the homestretch coming to the checkered when the yellow flag was waved. If you look on USAC's twitter they stated that there would be one to go at the point when the yellow flew. They then stated that their new policy is to have a green, white, checker finish so that is why they ran two laps after the caution. The leaders were off of turn four coming to the checkered flag when Darland blew up in turn two while running 10th. To me also there was no reason to throw the yellow instead of the checkered flag. He was still rolling and almost everyone had cleared him at that point and the leaders would have slowed after the checkered with no problems avoiding Darland who rolled over to turn four by that time anyhow. It made for an exciting finish for sure but I don't feel the caution was necessary either. I like both drivers so I have no dog in this fight or am showing any favoritism for one driver over another.

Bruce Eckel

I agree with Bruce 100% here. Also Jim, I think when you're referring back to 3 to go you're thinking of when Brackett spun out and stopped up between turns 3 and 4 on the bottom.

That makes two spine tingling finishes in a row with Kyle Cummins emerging victorious. I don't remember when I've seen a crowd that energized on the last lap of a feature at TSS, or anywhere else for that matter.
As for the crowd size, I could see from my reserved seat on the backstretch that the frontstretch grandstand was packed from top to bottom, and Nate's photo clearly shows that. That is unusual, as the crowd has gravitated to the backstretch over the years, primarily due to the sun and the winds generally come from the west. Also, the backstretch has a larger capacity due to the reserved seats, which I'm becoming more of a fan of each week. Every reserved seat was sold for this event. But where you sat was irrelevant because you were treated to such a fantastic and well run show from any vantage point. It will be hard to duplicate what was witnessed at TSS Saturday night, but I'll be there for the next event and I'm sure I'll witness an exciting evening of competition.