Swanson dominating win

Those put on areally good show before the silver crown cars. For my forst silver crown race in a few years it was pretty good.

Terre Haute, Indiana…….After racing in pavement races last year for DePalma Motorsports, Kody Swanson took advantage of his first dirt start with the team in the Silver Crown Series presented by Traxxas by winning Sunday’s “Sumar Classic” at the Terre Haute Action Track. The Kingsburg, California driver took the lead on lap 38 and and was untouchable over a long green-flag run to win in the Radio Hospital #63 Maxim/Hampshire.

“To be able to run with these guys all year, I don’t know if I can describe how excited I am to run for the championship with this team. I thought, ‘Man, wouldn’t we really surprise some people if we went to Terre Haute, a place that I shouldn’t be any good at, and pull off a win?’ We’ve put together a dirt sprint car and went to Florida and last night at Lawrenceburg, just trying to get me better, so to reward that the first race out is special. This group works so hard and has so much passion for Silver Crown racing, so I’m really proud to win here for them,” Swanson said.

Swanson led from the outset after qualifying second, but a flurry of early cautions posed restart after restart for him to hold of challenges. Chris Windom vaulted to second, as Bobby East also moved forward to shuffle polesitter Tracy Hines back to fourth. That foursome came to a pivotal restart on lap 35, when Swanson continued to lead on the high side.

Windom hit the bottom to take the lead after the green came out, taking the lead as they completed lap 36. Hines was surging back to the front, as he bolted by Windom to claim the point on lap 37. By then, Swanson had regained his momentum on the top to take the lead as the field completed the 38th lap.

Hines was back to Swanson’s inside, about to take the lead as they finished lap forty, but a caution came out, giving Swanson the lead back. On the restart, he jumped to the bottom and pulled away from the field.

Swanson lapped up to fourth while distancing his lead, facing no challenges as the race went green the remainder of the 100-lap distance. For Swanson, it was his fourth career series win.

“I knew the top was getting awful thin, even early on, as I was leading. I thought I’d have to come down at some point, but it was great to race with those guys and battle my way back to the lead. I think changing with the race track, and being able to move around when you need to, is so important to win on dirt and I’m still learning that. To put together a whole race at Terre Haute and win is exciting for all of us,” Swanson said.

Hines finished second in the Lightfoot Racing #16 Beast/Chevy, and Jerry Coons, Jr. moved up to finish third in his first race aboard the Fred Gormly – RPM Auto Enterprise #98 DRC/Mopar.

Bobby East began his quest for a third-straight Silver Crown title by finishing fourth in the Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing – Chevrolet Performance #10 Maxim/Chevy, while Zach Daum rounded out the top-five in the Daum Crop Insurance – Weld Wheels #5 Beast/Stanton Chevy.

TRAXXAS USAC SILVER CROWN RACE RESULTS: April 6, 2014 – Terre Haute, Indiana – Terre Haute Action Track – “Sumar Classic”

QUALIFYING: 1. Tracy Hines, 16, Lightfoot-21.112; 2. Kody Swanson, 63, DePalma-21.159; 3. Bobby East, 10, Stewart/Curb-Agajanian-21.422; 4. Shane Cockrum, 66, Hardy-21.455; 5. Chris Windom, 17, RW/Curb-Agajanian-21.467; 6. Jerry Coons Jr., 98, RPM/Gormly-21.534; 7. Aaron Pierce, 26, Pierce-21.869; 8. Caleb Armstrong, 9, Armstrong-22.045; 9. Dave Darland, 19, Longworth-22.063; 10. Zach Daum, 5, Daum-22.144; 11. Christopher Bell, 21, Team Six-R-22.221; 12. A.J. Fike, 3, RFMS-22.245; 13. Joe Liguori, 99, RPM/Gormly-22.511; 14. Jacob Wilson, 07, Wilson-22.520; 15. Davey Ray, 25, Sachs-22.850; 16. Dakota Jackson, 33, Jackson-22.865; 17. John Hunt, 91, Hunt-23.082; 18. Taylor Ferns, 35, Ferns-23.088; 19. Jarett Andretti, 14, McQuinn-23.231; 20. Patrick Lawson, 2, Lawson-23.335; 21. Jake Simmons, 31, Simmons-NT.

FEATURE: (100 laps) 1. Kody Swanson, 2. Tracy Hines, 3. Jerry Coons Jr., 4. Bobby East, 5. Zach Daum, 6. Shane Cockrum, 7. Dave Darland, 8. A.J. Fike, 9. John Hunt, 10. Joe Liguori, 11. Jacob Wilson, 12. Patrick Lawson, 13. Chris Windom, 14. Aaron Pierce, 15. Caleb Armstrong, 16. Christopher Bell, 17. Davey Ray, 18. Dakota Jackson, 19. Taylor Ferns, 20. Jake Simmons, 21. Jarett Andretti. NT
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**Simmons flipped during practice. Jackson flipped on lap 3 of the feature.

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-35 Swanson, Lap 36 Windom, Lap 37 Hines, Laps 38-100 Swanson.

NEW SILVER CROWN SERIES POINT STANDINGS: 1-Swanson-63, 2-Hines-60, 3-Coons-54, 4-East-51, 5-Daum-48, 6-Cockrum-45, 7-Darland-42, 8-Fike-39, 9-Hunt-36, 10-Liguori-33.

NEXT SILVER CROWN SERIES RACE: May 17 – Clermont, IN – Lucas Oil Raceway – “USAC Hall of Fame Classic”

Certainly not the best or most competitive Silver Crown race I have ever seen. However, it was one of the most anticipated. Glad to see Indiana Andy get a start on the new season with decent weather and a nice crowd on hand for a Sunday night race. Sitting in the sunshine watching hot laps seemed so far away from those long winter days with snow and brutally cold temps.

Always interesting to look at the crowd. Most of the folks in line at the ticket window and later sitting around where I was at, were mostly gray hairs like myself. I wish that there would be more young folks that had an interest in these beautiful, traditional machines.

I would have preferred seeing more cars but I have hopes that Andy is working on this and hope to see more at the Hoosier Hundred later next month. Glad to see the race billed as 100 laps and also run as 100 laps without any break.

Sarg and Reece deserve a lot of credit on getting the track in shape after all of the rain we had last week. One comment from a fans point of view. I hope in the near future that the fairgrounds can upgrade the sound system at THAT. I realize that I am older and don't hear as well as I used to but the current system is outdated and I am not sure where to sit to hear anything. Also thanks for the HARF discount not only for this show but the entire THAT schedule. If you are not a HARF member, consider it. Money well spent.

I can only say that there was at least one new young fan in attendance last night - my darling grandson came to his first race on his first birthday. Hopefully just the beginning of many races for him!

We sat in the infield because of the baby and I can tell you the PA is pretty much non-existent. Very hard to hear anything other than a few words now and then.

I can say that there was also a new fan in attendance. My wife wasn't going to make it due to church volunteer duties but ended up not having to work. She liked it, liked it even more just being in the passenger seat of my Jeep when packing the track. Can't wait to introduce her to the other sprint cars at the KISS/MSCS race. It was her first race she had been to other then the Indy 500. For a Sunday show that was also a Silver crown show, it was the amount of fans I expected.

I have observed that the sound system is best heard while standing under the flag pole behind the grandstand!

Thanks Ron. I knew someone had the best spot picked out.

I think the track and USAC did a great job of running the program. In my car at 9:15 on a Sunday night was great with a 2 plus hour drive, and early wake up for work.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the SUMAR Classic. Aside from meeting up with friends and hanging out, just seeing the cars on the track was therapeutic. No, the race wasn't wheel-to-wheel, tailpipe-chewing competitive (shout out to Kody Swanson and the DePalma team for dominating the race), but just listening to those cars idle by during pace laps is an absolutely beautiful song. Thanks, and hats off to Andy Hillenburg on his first event as series director, and to the rest of the USAC and THAT crews. Next up for me: Hoosier Hundred, then the highbanks of Belleville.