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USAC Eldora
ROSSBURG, Ohio — The Lucas Oil USAC National Sprint Car Series was turned on its ear Saturday night at Eldora Speedway. With new clay on the venerable oval and a week punctuated by heavy rain, competitors found the track choppy and rough. The result was frustrated racers, broken cars, a first-time winner and jumbled standings.
With less than two-dozen non-winged sprint-car starts, only a handful with USAC, Robert Ballou claimed a surprisingly easy victory over Jerry Coons, Jr. and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. The Rocklin, Calif., racer led all but the first five laps of the abbreviated feature, winning by seven seconds.
“From the time we got here and we rolled out it’s basically the same; we didn’t change anything,” Ballou said. “We just put fuel in and kept on going. We just set up a winged setup, put a lot of tilt in and let her eat.”
Considering the conditions, USAC shortened the feature to 25 circuits of the historic half-mile oval. Even then, it was dogged by red flags and repeated cautions. After three aborted starts, Brady Short grabbed the lead; but was passed by Levi Jones on lap five. The action was stopped on the next circuit when point-leader Kevin Swindell flipped.
On the restart, Ballou charged between Short and Jones and grabbed the point. After Jones hit a rut and flipped on the 10th circuit, Ballou built substantial leads on each restart.
Ballou had nearly a half-lap advantage when he began catching lapped cars, allowing Coons to close the gap.
“I was fighting my head rattling in there. I put a bunch of padding in, and it didn’t help any. I couldn’t see too well,” Ballou said. “But they’ve got to give Tony (Stewart) a break. Everyone on pit road was on the same race track, and if they want to come and bitch about it, they could have stayed home. Tony’s going to get it fixed; he doesn’t want this race track to be bad. So, I’m not worried about it. We’ll be back in a couple months and everything will be back to normal.” Coons was satisfied with his secondplace run, explaining, “There was a lot of carnage out there. We’re finding stuff falling off the race car now. This really beat the cars to death the way the race track was. There’s only so much you can do with the rain. We didn’t have anything for him. We ran second, and on a night like tonight, we’ll take it.”
The summary:
Eldora Speedway, April 28, 2007
Qualifications:
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1. Tracy Hines, Stewart 21, 15.712; 2. Jerry Coons, Jr., Dynamics 69, 15.774; 3. Damion Gardner, Leffler 71, 15.808; 4. Dustin Morgan, Walker/Guiducci 11d, 15.831; 5. Brady Short, 2B Racing 2b, 15.833; 6. Levi Jones, Stewart 20, 15.911; 7. Brady Bacon, Kahne 99, 15.918; 8. Robert Ballou, MPHG 81, 15.936; 9. Jon Stanbrough, Fox 53, 15.947; 10. Ricky Stenhouse, Walker/Guiducci 11, 15.994; 11. Daron Clayton, Clayton 92, 16.027; 12. Hunter Schuerenberg, R & B 10t, 16.045; 13. Chris Windom, Windom 17, 16.081; 14. Shane Cottle, Edison 10e, 16.198; 15. Kevin Swindell, Kahne 79, 16.240; 16. Darren Hagen, Kunz 67, 16.294; 17. Jesse Hockett, VKCC 75, 16.367; |
18. Dave Darland, Pace 44, 16.439; 19. Mat Neely, Neely 17n, 16.484; 20. Bill Rose, Rose 6, 16.487; 21. Mike Brecht, Seeling 97x, 16.550; 22. Shane Hollingsworth, R & B 10, 16.565; 23. Ron Dennis, Dennis 32, 16.609; 24. John Heydenreich, Burkey 57b, 16.696; 25. Jimmy Light, Light 23, 16.747; 26. Bret Mellenberndt, Mellenberndt 97, 16.802; 27. Danny Williams, Jr., Melchi 6m, 16.914; 28. Mike Miller, Kessel 320, 17.126; 29. Don Droud, Jr., Reid 2, 17.746; 30. Donnie Ray Crawford, Kunz 67k, 17.786; 31. Cody White, White 26, 17.890; 32. Aron McFadden, MAC Motorsports 23m, 18.542; 33. Jake Martens, Martens 48j, no time; 34. Rob Chaney, Hammer 24h, no time; 35. Matt Westfall, Westfall 54, no time. |
First Heat (10 laps): Hines, Windom, Short, Stanbrough, Brecht, Hockett, Light, Martens, Droud.
Second Heat (10 laps): Stenhouse, Coons, Hollingsworth, Darland, Cottle, Jones, Mellenberndt, Crawford.
Third Heat (10 laps): Clayton, Swindell, Bacon, Neely, Dennis, White, Williams, Gardner.
Fourth Heat (10 laps): Ballou, Hagen, Schuerenberg, Morgan, Heydenreich, Miller, Rose.
Semi (12 laps): Hockett, Gardner, Jones, Cottle, Dennis, Rose, Miller, Mellenberndt, White, Martens, Light, Crawford, Brecht, Heydenreich, Droud.
Feature (25 laps): Ballou, Coons, Stenhouse, Stanbrough, Short, Gardner, Hagen, Hockett, Hines, Darland, Hollingsworth, Rose, Morgan, Bacon, Neely, Crawford, Clayton, Jones, Schuerenberg, Swindell, Cottle, Windom, Dennis.