[JessicaJ]

5th Place at Macon Tops off Frustrating Weekend for Bruns
By Jessica Jenkins

With Summer now in full swing, Patrick Bruns took to the road for another busy back-to-back weekend of racing. This time the show went to Jacksonville Speedway and Macon Speedway for a pair of POWRi/ILLINI D2 events.

On Friday night Bruns and his MWR team pulled into Jacksonville and unloaded with their typically fast #10B midget, pulling off the heat race win and lining up well for the feature. Partway through the race contact between him and another competitor once again occurred and sent both drivers out of the race. Frustrated with what went down, Bruns and team headed back to Champaign, IL with an 11th place finish.

The crew worked hard the next day to get the car back into race shape and arrived at Macon Speedway looking to rebound from the previous night. And they certainly did an excellent job of that, starting second in the first heat and quickly taking the lead. Ne never looked back and even the smoke from a continuing motor issue couldn't keep him from crossing the line in first place.

As the warm evening moved towards darkness under clear skies and lightning flashing to the North, Bruns lined up outside front row for the feature. With his team, family and friends sitting in the stands, expectations were to take home the win. But nearly as soon as the green flag flew, disaster struck when the #10B wobbled after potential contact with the leader and rode up onto the wall, flipping Bruns over with the entire field coming at him. Thankfully they avoided him, but a handful of cars (including his teammate) came to a stop in turns one and two as the red flag flew. Bruns climbed from his bright orange and white machine then hopped back in and pushed off for the restart. He went green from the ninth spot and by lap seven was in the seventh position. When the yellow flew for some trouble with his teammate, Bruns inherited the sixth position previously occupied by the #10R. In the closing laps he began hunting down the next position and took fifth place on the white flag lap.

Making it all the way back to the top five was a huge accomplishment, especially considering Bruns' declaration that the car wouldn't turn. He and the team immediately went to work on the bent-up car before loading it up for the trip home.

The POWRi/Illini D2 midget series is scheduled to return to Lincoln Speedway this Friday, September 2nd. You can be sure Bruns will be there as he continues to chase another championship. The following weekend USAC's IMRA series will be at Spoon River Speedway on September 10th.