[Jerry Shaw]

As I rolled in off of Highway 41, there was already an electricity in the air. The pits were jam packed with cars. The front stretch parking lot had a sign saying "lot full". I waited in a line of cars for almost 15 minutes to reach the parking lot on the back 40. When I got to that I could see that they already had cars parked all the way back to to the pond and it was only 5:30. Walking up to the booth to get my tickets, I could see that there was a line that snaked all the way back to where the first hauler in the pits is always parked. I got in line and as I slowly made my way towards the window, I could see all the drivers' t-shirt booths, the sprint car simulators and a few food vendor booths. It was a nice little midway, with a definite carnival atmosphere to it. And once all these people made their way to their seats, Tom and Loris were going to have a house full, tonight.

Once qualifications got underway, it was obvious there would be a few challenges. There was a little bit of drift in the turns and laying the hammer down, while avoiding the wall in turns 2 and 4 would be a little tricky. As is often the case, Brady Bacon laid down the early gauntlet, with a fast lap. Many drivers were either making slight contact or driving a lower line to stay out of trouble and Brady’s mark was holding up. Cummins came close, as did Ballou and Schuerenberg. Then Jon Stanbrough rolled onto the track. He didn’t run lower line and showed the wall no respect at all. The way he was working that wheel while he was in and going out of the turns was something to watch. When he crossed the start/finish line you knew it was quick, even before they announced it. Not only was it fast time, but he had smashed everybody else by more than 3 tenths of a second! Game on! Clauson was the only one left that had a serious shot of topping that. He wasn’t as fast as Jon, but was fast enough to also put himself into the invert if he transferred.

The heats served notice that there would be plenty of room for passing here, tonight. In Heat 1 Kyle Cummins charged from the third row to win and fast qualifier Stanbrough almost spun, got shuffled to the back and then calmly drove his way back through the field to a third place transfer position. In the second heat, Ballou and Bacon easily transferred their way into the feature. Then Heat 3 came and started with Tracy Hines taking off like a scalded cat. It looked like he would leave the rest of them. Windom was in second. Donald Brackett, Bryan Clauson and Chase Stockon would battle it out for the last two transfer spots. Brackett was nails in this one as he would prove to be every bit the match of his two heavily favored competitors. Those three went at it most of this race. Stockon passed BC and BC was the odd man out, then BC passed him back and Chase got shuffled back. Clauson then went to make a slider on Brackett and Chase did his own slider on both of them. That left BC out of a transfer spot. Then on the last lap Clauson wrestled the 4th spot away from Brackett, with much effort and while all of this was going on, Windom had caught Hines and stole the top spot away from him coming down to the checker. This was the best heat race I’ve seen this year! I felt bad from Brackett, he deserved to transfer. He raced his ass off and barely lost the transfer on the last lap, to the best sprint car driver in the country, driving for the best team. He would earn his spot later with another great drive on the B-Main. Then Heat 4 came and although it was a bit of a letdown from the previous one, it still wasn’t too bad, as Brandon Mattox jumped out to an early lead and held off fast qualifiers Schuerenberg and Darland.

Come feature time you had local favorite Kyle Cummins, who is always fun to watch and The Madman starting on the front row, so you knew this thing was going to be action-packed from the drop of the flag. And it was, as Ballou jumped out to the early lead, but he had Kyle draped all over him for 5 or 6 laps, until Kyle took the lead away from Robert and jumped out to a decent little margin. Then about 10 laps or so after that a car slowed on the track, so we had the race’s only yellow. You could just tell by the way Ballou was jostling around behind Cummins during the caution that once we went back green we were getting ready to see some of that patented Madman aggression and he didn’t disappoint. He took the lead, but Kyle was ready to fight and did so for quite a few laps, until they reached some heavy lapped traffic. And while this was going on, the Modern Day Cowboy had his fans on their feet, as he had dropped back to like 16th or so and then began tearing a path through the field. Could another episode of THE MDC steal the show, as it had in the past? But it was not to be, as he would level off once he got to 5th or so. There were two times that Robert made daring dives on groups of lappers that kind of sealed the deal on this one and he closed the show, for the third time in a row at Tri-State Speedway.

Robert Ballou had won the battle, but Bryan Clauson had won the war and would repeat as Indiana Sprint Week Champion. As all the ceremonies were taking place, the one thing that stood out to me was that you had two drivers here. Ones that had been racing against each other since they were little kids in Northern California. Since they were probably 5 or 6 years old. They are two completely different guys. They have completely different driving styles. Had taken completely different paths to get here. They have a couple of things in common, though. They’re both good with fans and have a lot of them. And they can both sure as hell drive a sprint car. But here they both were. Both had won two races in 2014 Indiana Sprint Week and were 1-2 in the standings. When they were kids coming up through the quarter midget ranks, I wonder if the thought even occurred to either of them that someday they might end up 2000 miles away, amongst the Hoosier corn fields, standing at the top of their sport? Or if the thought even occurred to Tim or Scooter?

Jerry