Rossburg, Ohio…….Robert Ballou continued his hot stretch on Friday night as he wired the field to win the “Mother of All Sprint Car Weekends” opening 30-lapper for the AMSOIL National Sprint Cars at Eldora Speedway. It was the Rocklin, California native’s fourth victory of the season in the Blakesley Auto – MPHG Promotions #12 Maxim/Ott.
“It’s so hard to win these races, as good as everyone is up front right now, but when you catch that front row like tonight, you have to take advantage. We had obstacles from the beginning. The engine wasn’t quite right in hot laps, but we decided to leave it for qualifying. After the heat, I knew we needed to change it to have a chance to win. So, we took the engine out of our back-up car and replace the engine we had in the primary car to make it out there. They kept a lot of grip in it tonight, which surprised me some for running both divisions of sprint cars, and luckily we were strong enough. Our motors are really a strong point for us, and hopefully we can use that to keep us up front,” Ballou said.
Ballou led the opening half as most of the field ran the top-side of the famed half-mile. The best battle developed for fourth, as Justin Grant and Thomas Meseraull went at it as they neared the halfway point. Grant tried to slide past Meseraull into turn-three on lap 15, but the two made contact and Grant ended up in the wall, ending his night.
Defending National Series champion Brady Bacon was on the move from his 11th starting spot, moving into the top-six and challenging Jerry Coons, Jr. for fifth, as Meseraull had moved by him for the third spot and C.J. Leary came along for fourth. On lap 24, Bacon got over the turn-two cushion and hit the wall, coming to a stop to bring out the final caution.
Over the final seven laps, Ballou was unchallenged as Stanbrough distanced himself from the rest of the field to take home the second spot in the MP Environmental Services – AED Motorsports Products #81 Spike/J&D.
“We didn’t have anything for Robert tonight, but this is a good run for us here and good for my confidence here as this hasn’t been one of my better places lately. We tried some things early in the night, and I was honestly shocked that we were as fast as we were in qualifying. We weren’t that good, but we threw some things at it and had it pretty good for the feature. We’ve gotten better and better, finding what to do to the car to make it happy and make me happy,” Stanbrough said.
Leary came on strong in the closing laps, pulling a slider on Meseraull to claim the final podium spot in the Leary Construction Company – Green Tech Lubricants #30 DRC/Claxton Mopar.
“We finally started a little closer to the front, especially here, and it’s huge just to be up in the clear and be able to see the cushion and the wall while you’re racing guys. We moved forward, and a third is a really solid night for us here. Our confidence is high between running strong in these USAC races and picking off some local wins, and Derek (Claxton) has had the car great every night, so we’ll try to keep it going,” Leary said.
Meseraull made his opening night with USAC this season pay off as he finished fourth in the Keen’s Body Shop – Spirit Medical Transport #18x DRC/Claxton, and Tracy Hines rounded out the top-five in his The Carolina Nut Company – MPHG Promotions #4 DRC/Stanton Chevy.
Chase Stockon set the night’s ProSource “Fast Time” and came home tenth to retain his National point lead, which is now just six over Ballou.
AMSOIL USAC SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: May 8, 2015 – Rossburg, Ohio – Eldora Speedway
QUALIFYING: 1. Chase Stockon, 32, 32 TBI-15.587; 2. Thomas Meseraull, 18x, Keen-15.833; 3. Justin Grant, 40, Hery-15.885; 4. Jerry Coons Jr., 10E, Edison-15.906; 5. C.J. Leary, 30, Leary-15.936; 6. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-15.984; 7. Jon Stanbrough, 81, Stanbrough-16.078; 8. Aaron Farney, 15F, Farney-16.079; 9. Shane Cottle, 57, Hazen-16.086; 10. Tracy Hines, 4, Hines-16.105; 11. Logan Jarrett, 29, Jarrett-16.110; 12. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-16.148; 13. Kevin Thomas Jr., 17RW, Dutcher-16.195; 14. Dave Darland, 71p, Phillips/Curb-Agajanian-16.198; 15. Chris Windom, 21x, Pollock-16.233; 16. Dallas Hewitt, 16, Hewitt-16.238; 17. Landon Simon, 24, Simon-16.363; 18. Jarett Andretti, 18, Andretti-16.449; 19. Travis Hery, 21H, Hery-16.598; 20. Kent Wolters, 12x, Wolters-16.630; 21. Brandon Whited, 15, Whited-16.636; 22. Matt Goodnight, 39, Goodnight-16.640; 23. Chad Boespflug, 5, Baldwin-16.698; 24. Kody Swanson, 63, DePalma-16.704; 25. Dustin Smith, 77, Smith-16.713; 26. Daron Clayton, 66, Amati-16.734; 27. Jake Simmons, 3, Simmons-17.391; 28. Adam Cruea, 83, Cruea-17.604; 29. Robert Bell, 71, Bell-17.664; 30. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-NT.
FIRST HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Stockon, 2. Cottle, 3. Simon, 4. Thomas, 5. Leary, 6. Smith, 7. Whited, 8. Bell. 2:10.24
SECOND HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Darland, 2. Ballou, 3. Meseraull, 4. Hines, 5. Goodnight, 6. Clayton, 7. Andretti. NT
THIRD HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Windom, 2. Boespflug, 3. Grant, 4. Stanbrough, 5. Simmons, 6. Jarrett, 7. Hery. 2:10.59
FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Coons, 2. Farney, 3. Swanson, 4. Hewitt, 5. Cruea, 6. Wolters, 7. Bacon. 2:13.64
SEMI: (12 laps) 1. Leary, 2. Bacon, 3. Goodnight, 4. Clayton, 5. Smith, 6. Simmons, 7. Wolters, 8. Whited, 9. Cruea, 10. Hery, 11. Bell. 3:20.69
FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Robert Ballou, 2. Jon Stanbrough, 3. C.J. Leary, 4. Thomas Meseraull, 5. Tracy Hines, 6. Jerry Coons Jr., 7. Dave Darland, 8. Shane Cottle, 9. Aaron Farney, 10. Chase Stockon, 11. Chris Windom, 12. Kevin Thomas Jr., 13. Landon Simon, 14. Daron Clayton, 15. Matt Goodnight, 16. Brady Bacon, 17. Chad Boespflug, 18. Dallas Hewitt, 19. Jake Simmons, 20. Kody Swanson, 21. Justin Grant, 22. Dustin Smith. NT|
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Mattox flipped during qualifying. Andretti flipped during the second heat. Bacon flipped during the fourth heat.
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-30 Ballou.
NEW AMSOIL USAC NATIONAL SPRINT POINTS: 1-Stockon-638, 2-Ballou-632, 3-Darland-613, 4-Bacon-583, 5-Stanbrough-539, 6-Thomas-537, 7-Hines-506, 8-Leary-493, 8-Windom-381, 10-Farney-339.
NEXT AMSOIL NATIONAL SPRINT RACE: May 9 – Rossburg, Ohio – Eldora Speedway