[Jerry Shaw]

It was a good night for Robert Ballou on a couple of fronts. First off, he won the race and added his name to the list of drivers who have won these two Action Track feature events. The first named after one of the great drivers that caused the place to be known as "THE Action Track" and the other named for the Terre Haute born racing icon that made the world's greatest race track (IMS), what it is today. Early in the race Ballou was the hard charger, coming from his 10th place starting position, all the way up to third in just a handful of laps. Chris Windom was just ahead of him in second and Dave Darland was in a different zip code, completely checked out, in the lead. Then there was a yellow. Darland may have never been caught if there hadn't been that yellow, but there it was. And you never want to give drivers like Chris Windom and Robert Ballou a second chance. Because more often than not, they will take advantage of a new lease on life. On this restart, Dave started to take off again, until they found their way back into lapped traffic. When given the opportunity, Windom was the first one to pounce, with a slider in turns one and two. The first time, it didn't stick and Darland fought him off. The next time they came off of four, the top three were all in a tight group. Windom threw a slider again and this time ended up in front of Dave in turn two. But it was very close and to avoid Chris, Dave ran it up into the cushion and bounced it off the wall or came very close to doing so, it was hard to tell. This caused him to lose momentum and Ballou went on the attack and just like that, the leader was in third place. Robert chased Chris for a few laps and Chris drifted too high in the exact same spot, hit the wall hard and just that quick, The Madman seized the lead. Windom regrouped and mounted a comeback on Ballou, but couldn't get back to within striking distance. And on the other front, Ballou did what he had to do points wise, as he put a couple of points on his lead over third place Darland and somewhere around 17 or 18 on second place Chase Stockon. He was fast, but also drove a smart race, by waiting for his two largest opportunities to come to him and opening the door and running through it, when they knocked.

The racing was good all night long. They had a decent crowd and everybody got their money's worth. And Mother Nature not only spared us, but also put on a hell of a fireworks show, to our north.

Jerry