BRUNS SCORES RARE HAT TRICK AT ANGELL PARK
By Zach Tasker
For much of 2013 defending Illini Racing Series midget champion Patrick Bruns considered himself in a slump. Even though he was leading the points, the Champaign, Illinois native went the farthest he has ever went into a season without a win (July 14 at Angell Park) and has had numerous spells of bad luck including a crash during preseason testing at Rockford Speedway. Apparently Bruns found his lucky rabbits foot as Friday night August 16 and Saturday August 17th he reeled off two impressive back to back wins in USAC Honda Ignite Midwest Dirt Series Competition in Indiana at Gas City I-69 Speedway and Lincoln Park Speedway. Sunday saw Bruns rejoin the rest of the stars of the IRS at Angell Park Speedway for their final appearance on dirt in 2013.
The 20 lap feature would see Doug Orseske and Mike Gass lead the field to the green flag in front of a huge capacity crowd for Miller Lite Cornfest. The nights two heat race winners (Sean Murphy and Kurt Mayhew) would start deep in the field in row 5 after an inversion. Murphy along with his SET Racing teammate Mike Anderson would carve their way through the field. Meanwhile up front Patrick Bruns had asserted himself quickly as the leader from his 6th starting spot. The most impressive drive of the race had to be sophomore driver Jason Allen who ran 2nd for a majority of the feature. Allen would peak on the outside of Bruns a few times but couldn't get past him. A red flag with 6 laps remaining for Ray Seach jumping the cushion in turn 1 and flipping set up a very interesting finish to the race. On the restart Sean Murphy quickly disposed of Allen and had his sights set on leader Bruns. Another restart with 3 laps to go had Murphy pouncing but as Bruns ran the extreme low line it was very hard to get around. It looks like the two might have made slight contact coming off of turn 4 to the checkered flag but Bruns would not be denied as he picked up his 3rd win in 3 days solidifying himself as the hottest driver in all of restricted midget racing right now.
The driver of the #83 Full Throttle Racing/JET Motorsports/Cains Marine Welding/Tin Cup RV Park/Advanced Financial/Mobil 1/Triple T Car Wash & Lube/Depke Gases & Welding Supplies Beast/Ecotec was stunned himself by his performance this weekend "We were planning on running a little bit different line than what we ended up running here tonight but it worked for us and the car was running pretty decent and we got turned sideways in 3 and 4 on the white flag lap coming for the checkered and I thought we were done for but we held on and we got a win. 3 wins, 3 different tracks what a weekend. I couldn't do it without these guys, we put close to 1,200 miles on the truck this weekend so far. Some late nights, a lot of travel and couple hours of sleep last night." All of those hours on the road was made worth it by bringing home some new hardware and extending his series points lead over Mike Gass "The last 24 hours have been pretty rough. It brings us back to memories a couple years ago when we were leading the Illini points and we were leading the USAC (Ignite) points and we made a decision to go ahead and secure up the title with USAC and we were able to hand the Illini championship off to a deserving driver. And last night was very difficult because USAC put up some money for this midget week series with the Ignite midgets and all we had to do was show up in Danville 30 minutes from my house. Instead we choose to drive 6 hours to Sun Prairie and it all works out. I really believe in this series up here. I love running Angell Park and I'm looking forward to finishing the year out real strong."
The Smurfinatior almost crashed the hat trick party for Bruns but was pleased with a runner up finish "I got stuck in a lot of traffic early on with my teammate Anderson. We were both getting off the bottom pretty good but neither one of us were letting an inch go. Once I got past him it seemed like things started to open up and I think I went from like 9th or 10th all the way up to 3rd for the restart and had 6 laps left and I had to take Jason Allen, hes good behind the wheel and Bruns. I got Jason Allen but Bruns is tough, I didn't quite have it enough for him. I was getting off a lot better than he was off the bottom but he wasn't moving his car so with 2 laps to go I tried the high side but it just didn't feel comfortable running that close to the wall." The driver of the #5 Potential Ag/SET Racing Engines Twister/Ecotec will look for his 3rd win of the season this Saturday at Grundy County Speedway.
Rounding out the podium was Mike Anderson, who ironically finished 3rd at Angell Park to Bruns and Murphy back on May 25 "Sean got by us in the middle of the race there, I kind of made a mistake in 1 and 2 and he got underneath us. We raced pretty clean for about a lap and half or two then he worked his way by us pretty good and took off. This place changed differently tonight than it was the last two previous times here. You pretty much had to put the Sycamore setup on it. Tonight I don't know what it was, maybe the bigger number of national cars really dried this place up a little bit but there was no cushion up top. It dried up and you had to get to the bottom and make it work on the bottom, that was the fast way." The driver of the #7 SET Racing Engines/Heros West Sports Grill/VIP Salon & Spa/John Lawson Auto Rebuilders/RHO Chemical/Party Bomb Energy Drink/SP2 Graphics Stewart/Ecotec is 3rd in series points but with the final 5 races of the year all on pavement is looking for a late season championship push "Its getting towards the end of the season so you start thinking do we have a play at this thing so you know if we take care of business on pavement definitely at a track like Morris that we know, we could be there at the end of the season, so its going to be fun." The next race for the IRS midgets will be this Saturday night August 24 at the Grundy County Speedway as its the D'arcy summer pavement nationals presented by Bell Helmets. Racing starts at 6:30pm.

UNOFFICIAL RESULTS: FEATURE (20 L) 1)#83 Patrick Bruns 2)#5 Sean Murphy 3)#7 Mike Anderson 4)#54 Jason Allen 5)#0 Doug Orseske 6)#31 Kourtnay Borman 7)#21a Bob Shreffler 8)#52 Mike Gass 9)#21k Kurt Mayhew 10)#9k Scott Koerner 11)#24 Ray Seach 12)#4 Eric Greenup 13)#77 Lamont Critchett 14)#88 Basil Hicks 15)#43 Buddy Luebke (DNS) 16)#15 Jeff Zelinski (DNS)

HEAT RACE #1 (8 L) 1)#21k Kurt Mayhew 2)#24 Ray Seach 3)#83 Patrick Bruns 4)#54 Jason Allen 5)#52 Mike Gass 6)#77 Lamont Critchett 7)#43 Buddy Luebke 8)#15 Jeff Zelinski

HEAT RACE #2 (8 L) 1)#5 Sean Murphy 2)#7 Mike Anderson 3)#31 Kourtnay Borman 4)#9k Scott Koerner 5)#0 Doug Orseske 6)#4 Eric Greenup 7)#21a Bob Shreffler 8)#88 Basil Hicks