| Jerry Shaw |
6/4/21 2:45 AM |
Mother Nature had obviously dumped a lot of moisture on the track in the last day or so. To the untrained eye, it may have looked like Indiana Midget Week might get off to a slow start. Many times that is the case with Midget or Sprint Weeks. It takes a few races to get the momentum going.
But, if you've been around this old joint for any amount of time, you know one of the best scenarios you can arrive to is a wet, heavy track that has to be reclaimed from the elements. Much like Bloomington, at Paragon a bad track early usually means a great track late. And vise versa.
Hot laps were nearly impossible. For the heats, you could see the track coming around, but passing wasn't easy. Especially for sprints. When the midget B Main was ran, you could see that the stage was going to be set nicely, come feature time.
The Sprint feature would have Logan Seavey taking over in the last half of the race. There would be a yellow with 9 to go. AJ Hopkins, who had started I think 14th, sat in 4th. Seavey took off after the green flew again, but AJ quickly moved into second, but Logan had opened up another nice sized lead by the time he did. Over the next nine laps, the crowd would be wowed, as Hopkins chased Seavey down, got him on the white flag lap and sailed home with the victory. It had been a thrilling race and the bar had been set very high for the USAC Midgets, who were set to take the stage next.
Cannon McIntosh would take the lead from Justin Grant on the second lap and lead throughout. But Grant didn't give up easily and made many runs at McIntosh throughout the first 2/3 of the race. Thomas Meseraull was on the move, from his sixth row starting position and you just knew, when he passed Grant for second with less than 10 laps left, that a whole different dynamic had opened up in this race. He caught Cannon and put an enormous amount of pressure on him, especially in the last 5 laps. Then, in the last turn, on the last lap, McIntosh bobbled and TMez seized the opportunity and beat him back to the flagstand, to pull victory from the jaws of defeat!!
So, after a slow start, we finished with 2 features that just brought the house down! Paragon Speedway really laid the gauntlet down for the rest of the Midget Week tracks that follow. That's going to a tough program to top. If we have one or more of those tracks that can beat the show we saw tonight, then we will be very lucky race fans. And I hope like hell that happens.
Jerry
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