BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – One year ago, Buddy Kofoid’s victory at Bakersfield Speedway required some late-race moves.
On Tuesday night, Kofoid iced his latest Bakersfield win decisively at the third-mile clay oval for his fifth USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget Championship victory of the year. Kofoid reclaims the series lead with the win, moving four points ahead of Chris Windom.
Kofoid stalked race-long leader Emerson Axsom before taking the lead for good with 13 laps to go.
From there, Kofoid withstood three restarts for his first national midget win since June 11 during Indiana Midget Week at Gas City I-69 Speedway.
“I knew getting off to a good start would be critical, but [Axsom] got me both times,” Kofoid said. “I tried a little bit of something the second time and it was still just a little hard to get going on the outside. He’s running the top on both ends, so I decided I’ll just try the middle/bottom in one and two and it kept sticking good.
“Early on, I felt like I wanted to flip over backwards because it was gripped up so much,” he added.
Kofoid became the first driver to win consecutive USAC National Midget features at Bakersfield since current Keith Kunz Motorsports manager and driver coach Jay Drake 1997 and ‘98.
In victory lane, Kofoid dedicated the win to teammate Daison Pursley, who continues to recover from spinal fusion surgery treating broken C4-C5 vertebrae suffered during a wreck last week at Arizona Speedway, as well as injured team member Shane Marquez.
Axsom started from the pole and led the opening 17 laps, maintaining a two-car lead into traffic at the halfway point.
Kofoid passed Axsom in traffic when the Petry Motorsports driver got sideways.
“I was just kind of biding my time, waiting for traffic, and I feel like I can contend with people or snooker them a little bit in traffic if I’m there, and I was able to do that,” Kofoid said. “Then, after that point, I just needed to move back to the top of one and two and just start running laps.”
Cautions for Ethan Mitchell, World of Outlaws driver Carson Macedo and Jade Avedisian erased Kofoid’s large leads.
Kofoid led by nearly two seconds before Avedisian’s flip on the final lap — Avedisian did walk away OK — but had no issue on the green-white-checkered finish, claiming the win by 1.130 seconds.
Axsom and Justin Grant made up the podium. Tanner Thorson finished fourth with Cannon McIntosh fifth.
McIntosh broke the one-lap Bakersfield track record in qualifying with his time of 12.347 seconds. Billy Boat’s lap of 12.349 seconds previously held those honors since Nov. 1995.
To see full results, turn to the next page.