CLAUSON SHUCKS “CORNFEST” NATIONAL MIDGET FIELD

Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.…..Angell Park Speedway holds a special place for Bryan Clauson, and the Noblesville, Indiana driver added to his impressive resumee at the historic third-mile oval as he won Sunday night’s “CornFest” 30-lap Honda National Dirt Midget Feature, co-sanctioned by both POWRi and BMARA. It was the 28th career National Midget win for Clauson, surpassing Gary Bettenhausen and Tony Stewart to move into a tie for 12th all-time with Dave Darland.

Andrew Felker shot to the lead from the pole, while Clauson raced with Caleb Armstrong for the second spot. Zach Daum stuck his nose in to make it a three-car battle for the runner-up spot as Tanner Thorson spun on lap five to bring out the caution.

On the restart, Felker stayed low and Daum followed him into three as Clauson rode the cushion to the lead at the completion of lap five. From there, Clauson was on a mission, diving deep into lapped traffic as Tracy Hines moved to second and tried to keep pace.

Hines used traffic to his advantage as he closed the gap on Clauson with less than five laps to go, but third-running Rico Abreu slowed to a stop in turn-two with just three laps left.

Clauson got a good restart and finished mistake-free to post a .565-second win in the Corey Tucker/BCI/Curb-Agajanian Racing – Mobil-1 #39 Spike/Esslinger.

“I always look forward to coming to this place. I’ve had a lot of success here, and it seems to suit me. We worked really hard on this car last night to get it ready for tonight. When it gets wide and slick here, I think we always go pretty good. I knew if I could get to the top and get rippin’ after I got by the 7 (Armstrong) that we would be alright. The seas parted a bit on the restart, so we got the lead and just had to deal with traffic and try to save some stuff when I could. I don’t think I was being all that tentative in traffic, but they were racing each other so hard back there. The caution saved us some there, and I got a good restart to finish it,” Clauson said of his third win of the season.

Hines stayed close to Clauson as he stretched out his advantage over third to come home in the runner-up spot aboard the Parker Machinery – Turbines, Inc. #24 Spike/Stanton Toyota.

“I’ll take it – I felt like we were as good as him. I think my line allowed me to go through traffic a little better than him. I wasn’t that good off the corner and our right-rear was going down, so I didn’t have much drive to go after him. I haven’t really seen Angell Park like this before, really, so I just had to move around and try some different lines to be fast,” Hines said.

Darren Hagen overcame an engine failure during qualifying to rebound for a podium finish after starting 15th in the RFMS Racing – Liberty Village #3 DRC/Esslinger.

“The track was a little different than usual here; either way, it’s always great racing here and Angell Park is one of the best places in the country. We had two engine problems tonight with one forcing us to take out the back-up car. We just had to calm down and look at the big picture, working at going forward all night. We needed a few more cautions to help get us through there, but it was fun coming up through there. These guys prepare well, so we were able to overcome the issues,” Hagen said.

Jerry Coons, Jr. finished fourth in the Joe Dooling – Westin Packaged Meats #63 Spike/Esslinger, and Zach Daum rounded out the top-five in the Daum Crop Insurance – Toyota TRD #5D Eagle/Stanton Toyota.

15-year old Parker Price-Miller took home “ProSource Fast Time” for the night before finishing 13th in the Feature.

HONDA USAC NATIONAL DIRT MIDGET RACE RESULTS: August 18, 2013 – Sun Prairie, Wisconsin – Angell Park Speedway – “CornFest” (co-sanctioned by POWRi and BMARA)

QUALIFICATIONS: 1. Parker Price-Miller, 9P, Ronk-14.852; 2. Rico Abreu, 67K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-14.887; 3. Tracy Hines, 24, Parker-14.922; 4. Bryan Clauson, 39, Tucker/BCI/Curb-Agajanian-14.940; 5. Caleb Armstrong, 7c, C&A-14.954; 6. Zach Daum, 5D, Daum-14.999; 7. Andrew Felker, 11A, Felker-15.090; 8. Tanner Thorson, 67, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-15.115; 9. Tyler Thomas, 91T, Thomas-15.131; 10. Jerry Coons, Jr., 63, Dooling-15.136; 11. Dalton Armstrong, 7A, C&A-15.142; 12. Brad Kuhn, 11, Wilke-15.145; 13. Robbie Ray, 3R, Ray-15.196; 14. Scott Hatton, 1, Hatton-15.234; 15. Darren Hagen, 3, RFMS-15.240; 16. Bill Balog, 2, Lein-15.272; 17. Jake Blackhurst, 25, Blackhurst-15.296; 18. Chett Gehrke, 11c, Matteson-15.305; 19. Seth Motsinger, 2M, KBR-15.318; 20. Brandon Waelti, 51, Huston-15.324; 21. Mike Spencer, 57, Ecker-15.326; 22. Austin Brown, 7, KBR-15.349; 23. Bubba Altig, 1H, Hardy-15.372; 24. Chris Bell, 71, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-15.423; 25. Terry Babb, 88, Babb-15.440; 26. Bob Shreffler, 21, Shreffler-15.506; 27. Cody Weisensel, 20, Weisensel-15.814.

FIRST HEAT : (10 laps) 1. Clauson, 2. Coons, 3. Felker, 4. Ray, 5. Price-Miller, 6. Babb, 7. Brown, 8. Balog, 9. Motsinger. 2:39.78

SECOND HEAT : (10 laps) 1. Blackhurst, 2. Thorson, 3. Abreu, 4. Hatton, 5. C. Armstrong, 6. Altig, 7. Waelti, 8. D. Armstrong, 9. Shreffler. 2:43.26

THIRD HEAT : (10 laps) 1. Hines, 2. Hagen, 3. Thomas, 4. Kuhn, 5. Bell, 6. Daum, 7. Weisensel, 8. Gehrke, 9. Spencer. 2:41.71

SEMI: (12 laps) 1. Daum, 2. Waelti, 3. D. Armstrong, 4. Altig, 5. Balog, 6. Gehrke, 7. Weisensel, 8. Motsinger, 9. Spencer, 10. Shreffler, 11. Brown, 12. Babb. NT

FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Bryan Clauson, 2. Tracy Hines, 3. Darren Hagen, 4. Jerry Coons, Jr., 5. Zach Daum, 6. Andrew Felker, 7. Chris Bell, 8. Tanner Thorson, 9. Brad Kuhn, 10. Bill Balog, 11. Tyler Thomas, 12. Brandon Waelti, 13. Parker Price-Miller, 14. Chett Gehrke, 15. Jake Blackhurst, 16. Scott Hatton, 17. Mike Spencer, 18. Caleb Armstrong, 19. Austin Brown (#2M), 20. Cody Weisensel, 21. Dalton Armstrong, 22. Robbie Ray, 23. Rico Abreu, 24. Bubba Altig. NT
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**Brown flipped in the Semi.

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-4 Felker, Laps 5-30 Clauson.

NEW HONDA NATIONAL DIRT MIDGET POINTS: 1-Bell-672; 2-Clauson-639; 3-Hines-596; 4-Coons-564; 5-Hagen-543; 6-Felker-531; 7-Daum-491; 8-Abreu-463; 9-Thorson-416; 10-Kuhn-415.

NEXT HONDA NATIONAL DIRT MIDGET RACE: September 21 – Rossburg, Ohio – Eldora Speedway – “Four Crown Nationals”

SUN PRAIRIE, Wis. (Aug. 18, 2013)-Bryan Clauson rocketed from third to first on an early restart and led the final 26 laps to win the Miller Lite Cornfest, an event sanctioned by the POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget Series, Honda USAC National Dirt Midgets and the Stark Automotive Group/Mid-State Equipment Badger Midgets, on Sunday at Angell Park Speedway.



Andrew Felker, running the outside, had led the opening four laps from pole. Zach Daum had shot past Clauson and Caleb Armstrong on the inside in turn one to take over second place when the caution came out. Felker knew he'd be vulnerable to an attack from Daum and decided to restart on the inside. Daum followed him and Clauson had a clear path on the outside.



"I was happy to see Daum go to the bottom," Clauson said. "It opened the door for us. Catching the caution was key. I needed to shake free of Caleb. We'd been doing sliders and Felker and Daum were getting away. I knew if I could get to the top and get ripping, we'd be pretty good."



Clauson's victory was his third this season and 21st in POWRi Midgets, third on the all-time list, and 28th in USAC National Midgets. The 24-year-old from Noblesville, Ind., a three-time National Midget driving champion, was challenged by Tracy Hines in the closing laps.



"I think I was being tentative in traffic," Clauson said. "There were about eight cars running two and three wide in front of me."



Hines' Toyota-powered Spike was one car length behind Clauson's Curb Records Spike-Esslinger when the race's second caution came out, leaving three laps to the checkered flag.



"Traffic allowed me to get close," Hines said. "Clauson pulled me three car lengths on the restart and that was the race. We were pretty even after that. It was a solid run for us. It wasn't the bet car. We needed more forward bite. We lacked forward drive."



Without any cars in front of him after the restart, Clauson finished four car lengths in front of runner-up Hines.



Darren Hagen's DRC-Esslinger finished third. He was fourth for the final restart and slid past Felker in turns one and two for his final pass. Hagen started 15th.



"I started working the bottom, then went to the top and finally found rubber in the middle and passed Jerry Coons (Jr.) for sixth," Hagen said. "We got up to fourth and slid Felker for third."



Coons finished fourth in his Spike-Esslinger, Daum was fifth in his Eagle-Toyota and Felker sixth in his Spike-Fontana. Daum leads Felker for the POWRi championship by 120 points with 20 of 31 events completed.

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Felker didn't regret taking the bottom on the fifth lap restart.



"If I'd gone to the top, Zach would have driven by me," Felker said. "It was the only choice I could make to stay in the lead."



POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget Series feature results (30 laps): 1. Bryan Clauson, 2. Tracy Hines, 3. Darren Hagen, 4. Jerry Coons Jr., 5. Zach Daum, 6. Andrew Felker, 7. Chris Bell, 8. Tanner Thorson, 9. Brad Kuhn, 10. Bill Balog, 11. Tyler Thomas, 12. Brandon Waelti, 13. Parker Price-Miller, 14. Chett Gehrke, 15. Jake Blackhurst, 16. Scott Hatton, 17. Mike Spencer, 18. Caleb Armstrong, 19. Austin Brown, 20. Cody Weisensel, 21. Dalton Armstrong, 22. Robbie Ray, 23. Rico Abreu, 24. Bubba Altig.


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