Brady Bacon passes Robert Ballou at the white flag for his first Terre Haute win over Ballou Short Cottle Stockon Darland Clauson Hines

Must have been a quick show! I just got on here, and was going to seek updates.

Ron.... Be in eville in abt 30 min....

How was the crowd tonight? Was the race as good as the WoO (or better)?

Terre Haute, Indiana…….AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship leader Brady Bacon finally sealed the deal at Terre Haute on Thursday, winning his first at the half-mile in the 30-lap “Jim Hurtubise Classic” with a pass as the leaders hit the white flag. The Broken Arrow, Oklahoma native made it his third win of the year in the Hoffman Auto Racing – Mean Green #69 Triple X/Williams Mopar as the flag-to-flag victory took 11:34.17.

“We’ve never finished off the podium here together (with Hoffmans), but it was frustrating to not get a win. It feels great to win one and do it in a great race where we had to take it away at the end. It got high in three and four, and I got beat staying up top the last race here, so I started trying something different down there. He had pulled away from me a bit, so I went to the middle and just kept trying to slow down and run lower and lower. I got by him just in time,” Bacon said.

Ballou hooked the pole for the feature after timing in seventh and gunned to the lead at the outset, as Bacon was able to use the bottom off turn-two to rocket to the runner-up spot. He kept pace with Ballou as those two opened up a sizable margin on the rest of the field.

Chase Stockon held down third for much of the race, and behind him was a race between defending race winner Jerry Coons, Jr., this year’s “Hulman Classic” winner Dave Darland, and ProSource “Fast Qualifier” Jon Stanbrough.

As the race hit its later stages, third through eleventh all raced amongst each other as Ballou and Bacon had checked out on the field. Brady Short was on the move, as he and fellow sixth-row starter Shane Cottle were making gains on the lower half of the track. Short finally pulled even with Stockon for the third spot with just three to go.

Up front, Ballou had fought back Bacon repeatedly and opened up his gap, but Bacon countered by moving around to find a faster way. He was coming in a hurry the final five laps, using the top of turns one and two and dropping to the bottom in turns three and four. He nearly pulled to his back bumper as they completed lap 28, and when he came off turn-four for the white flag, Bacon had a run. He cleared Ballou down the frontstretch and jumped to the top, while Ballou tried to turn back underneath to no avail.

Bacon rolled through the west end of the speedway one final time to win by .461-seconds over Ballou, who guided his Blakesley Auto – Hinchman Racing Uniforms #12x Maxim/Ott to his sixth-straight podium finish in series competition.

“Sometimes, you need a set of eyes in the back of your head. Tonight was one of those times. I saw him down there a couple times, and he just beat us right at the end when I was losing a little bit down in three and four. I don’t know if I needed a yellow or not. We probably used our stuff up a bit too much trying to work traffic. This stretch has shown our dedication. We’ve finally got things where we knew we needed them. I can’t say enough about Derrick Bye and the work he’s put into not just preparing the car, but learning how to make us faster,” Ballou said.

An amazing twelve seconds behind them, Short held on for third in the Pottorff Logging – Indiana Stone Works #11P Maxim/SPEC, winning the B&W Auto Mart “Hard Charger Award” for his work.

“I just kept seeing it get higher and higher, and we had tightened the heck out of the car. It kept coming to me, the slicker it got. We’ve gotten better here trying to do just that. It worked out, but we could have used a caution a time or two along the way. It’s amazing because these have never been my style of track, but we’re getting more comfortable out there,” Short said.

Just behind Short was Cottle, who closed the gap in the final laps to come home fourth in the Epperson Painting – PPG #2E Spike/Foxco, and Stockon rounded out the top-five in the Superior Tank & Trailer – Crescent Electric Supply #32 DRC/Fisher.

AMSOIL USAC SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: September 18, 2014 – Terre Haute, Indiana – Terre Haute, Indiana – “Jim Hurtubise Classic”

QUALIFICATIONS: 1. Jon Stanbrough, 37RW, Dutcher-20.064; 2. Dave Darland, 71p, Phillips-20.192; 3. Jerry Coons Jr., 10E, Edison-20.232; 4. Kevin Thomas Jr., 9k, KT-20.341; 5. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-20.360; 6. Chase Stockon, 32, 32 TBI-20.460; 7. Robert Ballou, 12x, Ballou-20.512; 8. Tracy Hines, 4, Hines-20.650; 9. Justin Grant, 40, Hery-20.803; 10. Chris Windom, 11, Walker-20.874; 11. Brady Short, 11p, Pottorff-20.905; 12. Shane Cottle, 2E, Epperson-21.066; 13. C.J. Leary, 30, Leary-21.074; 14. Bryan Clauson, 20, Stewart/Curb-Agajanian-21.083; 15. Jac Haudenschild, 11x, Walker-21.128; 16. Chad Boespflug, 5, Baldwin-21.365; 17. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-21.412; 18. Terry Babb, 88, Babb-21.436; 19. Hunter Schuerenberg, 20N, Schuerenberg/Nolen-21.521; 20. Logan Jarrett, 29, Jarrett-21.784; 21. Jarett Andretti, 18, Andretti-21.848; 22. Bill Rose, 6, Rose-22.446.

FIRST HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Ballou, 2. Stanbrough 3. Leary. 4. Windom. 5. Jarrett, 6. Thomas, 7. Boespflug. 2:50.28

SECOND HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Clauson, 2. Bacon, 3. Hines, 4. Darland, 5. Mattox, 6. Short,.7. Andretti. 2:51.81

THIRD HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Coons, 2. Cottle, 3. Schuerenberg, 4. Stockon, 5. Haudenschild, 6. Grant, 7. Rose. 2:55.26

FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Brady Bacon, 2. Robert Ballou, 3. Brady Short, 4. Shane Cottle, 5. Chase Stockon, 6. Dave Darland, 7. Bryan Clauson, 8. Tracy Hines, 9. Jerry Coons Jr., 10. Chris Windom, 11. Jon Stanbrough, 12. C.J. Leary, 13. Justin Grant, 14. Kevin Thomas Jr., 15. Hunter Schuerenberg, 16. Logan Jarrett, 17. Jarett Andretti, 18. Brandon Mattox, 19. Jac Haudenschild, 20. Chad Boespflug, 21. Bill Rose. 11:34.17
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FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-28 Ballou, Laps 29-30 Bacon.

NEW AMSOIL NATIONAL SPRINT POINTS: 1-Bacon-1,623, 2-Darland-1,606, 3-Clauson-1,572, 4-Stanbrough-1,517, 5-Stockon-1,399, 6-Hines-1,276, 7-Windom-1,263, 8-Grant-1,260, 9-Ballou-1,207, 10-Leary-1,115.

NEXT AMSOIL NATIONAL SPRINT RACE: September 20 – Eldora Speedway – Rossburg, Ohio – “Four Crown Nationals”

Ron.........I would guesstimate crowd at about half of WoO crowd...............Track was better at WoO show but racing was far superior tonight.................IMO

Got back to Evansville about 10:20, Ron. Great race in both divisions. My estimate would be the crowd was maybe a third of the Outlaw show at best. Grandstands had seats available anywhere and the infield was very light. Just being honest.

The crowd tonight was the worst I have ever seen at Terre Haute. I could not believe how empty the place was. Not many people in the grandstands and very few people in the infield. We sat down by turn 4 and when the race was over we walked to the restroom and then to the car. Turned left and drove out the front gate. There were 5 cars in front of us. Absolutely no line to get out of there. I didn't go the night before to see the WoO show but there were a few people around me that had. They said there was a great crowd there to see a terrible show. Cars were strung out at the drop of the green flag and very little passing. They said there was more passing in the 1st heat tonight than there was in the feature the previous night. I asked if they had a preference over wings or non-wings and they said they didn't they just love good exciting racing. I asked them why they thought there was such a low turnout tonight and they thought it was because most fans can't afford to attend two nights in a row. Geez I find that hard to believe but these were local fans and that was their opinion. I think there were 22 sprint cars. 3 heats and a feature. The modifieds had 2 heats and a feature. Both features were action packed with lots of great racing from front to back. We were driving out of the place at 9:30 pm. The Terre Haute Action Track on an absolutely beautiful September evening for the Jim Hurtubise Classic and so many great race fans were a no-show. It is a sad state of affairs for open wheel racing. I think the drivers and owners do a great job of promoting the show on social media and basically are begging the fans to come out to watch their skills without any positive results. It was a great race! Bacon, Ballou, Darland, Clauson and others gave it their all. Please don't complain when there aren't anymore of these great motorsport events to attend. I sure would have hated to been the promoter tonight.

We drove 5 hrs to watch last night and tonight on our wary to eldora. Last night the track was "too gd" , no passing hardly at all. But it happens I'd rather see that than a burnt up PC of crap track. It was still a gd night old of racing, nobody got hurt . Tonight on the other hand was a fantastic night of racing ! Both features were great exciting races.
To the joker last night that told me " oh this place will have twice as many people tomorow night cause it's nonwing ." You're a genius.