JJMooney
(Online)
#38
10/7/23 3:48 PM
I’d estimate the crowd at 4-500. I knew running this show on Friday might be tough, but understood the logic not wanting to run against Lawrenceburg’s USAC show Saturday. Temps dropped and the wind picked up late afternoon. That didn’t help either.
Some of the good storylines from last night…
Danny Smith making his first Putnamville start since 2001. He just missed making the A in his heat race, finishing fourth. Started pole of the second B and got the last transfer spot by finishing second by inches over 19 year old Trey McGranahan. Danny started 22nd. Finished 11th. I believe Danny and Logan Seavey passed the most cars during the feature.
I haven’t seen Marion, Illinois’ Carson Short run much the last couple years. He made the dash and looked to be the one of the fastest cars in the field in the feature. I didn’t see what how it happened but he flipped on the front stretch with 8 laps to go. I did see him wheelie off the curb in turn four a number of times prior to that.
No one was more shocked than me seeing 49 cars signed at race time. I’ll be honest, in the days leading up to the event, I had a hard time picturing 20 cars (and I thought most would be local 305’s).
Drivers from Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Arizona, Alaska, and Canada made this one of the most “geographically diverse” field of drivers I’ve seen at Putnamville in years outside of Sprint Week.
Surprises included Chis Windom, Bill Balog, Scotty Theil (in the Seeling 97 out of Ohio), Cole Duncan (in the Dutcher 17), Skylar Gee, Trey Jacobs, Travis Philo, Ayrton Gennetten, Jason Blonde. I could on…
An Indiana driver, Cale Thomas, won the $6,000 A-main. I read where it his first win ever in his home state and his largest payday in his career.
Great job by the USAC regulars, especially Seavey and Brady Bacon. Both were the night’s quick qualifiers in their respective time trial groups. Seavey looked especially fast in one of the Newton 16’s. All I could think was, “That kid’s driving it like he stole it”.
It was fun watching T-Mez move to the front. I thought he might make things interesting at the end. He wound up sixth.
And hats off to the weekly Indiana non-wing drivers making a rare winged start. And some, like Brandon Mattox, were racing with a wing for the very first time.
It will be interesting what next year will bring with this series. Yes the show ran late. The main took the checkers at 11:52 pm. They do need to figure out a way to move up engine heat and speed up hot laps and qualifying. That was the portion of the show that seemed to drag for me.
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