BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – He may only have a handful of races behind the wheel of Steve and Carla Phillips’ No. 71p sprint car, but Cannon McIntosh broke through for his first win with the team on Friday night.
McIntosh was the beneficiary of a late clash between Jadon Rogers and Brady Bacon at the quarter-mile dirt oval, inheriting the lead with six laps left in the 25-lap feature that accompanied the track’s Indiana Midget Week date.
From there, McIntosh led the rest of the way and took the victory by .141 seconds over Brady Short.
It was redemption from one night earlier, when McIntosh lost the opening Indiana Midget Week feature after being passed by Thomas Meseraull in the final corner at Paragon Speedway.
“We were pretty good there early on the bottom, and when the bottom started to go away it stalled our progress,” said McIntosh, who started seventh. “I moved up there late, and I don’t know what we were going to have for Brady there if he hadn’t gotten into that incident [with Rogers]. But I saw coming to the restart that Rogers’ left rear was flat, so I dove to the bottom and didn’t want to follow him.
“We got a good restart after that and just took off from there. The car was really good.”
Rogers took the lead from the outside pole on the initial start as the field went three- and four-wide at times behind him. He built a straightaway advantage by lap five and was the class of the field before a lap-seven caution for a four-car melee in turn four that erased his advantage and eliminated traffic.
The restart saw Bacon roll the top to pass Tye Mihocko for second in turns one and two. Further back, McIntosh grabbed third from Mihocko four laps later when Mihocko jumped the turn-four cushion.
That pass put McIntosh in the catbird’s seat when, on a restart with 19 laps scored, Rogers left the door open just enough for Bacon to get to his inside for the lead entering turn one.
Rogers tried to counter after Bacon shoved him high, getting into Bacon’s left-rear tire and cutting it as the yellow flag waved. Rogers’ car was beached in the corner, while Bacon also retired at that point.
Elevated from third to first by the chaos, McIntosh then held a hard-charging Short off in the final laps for his first non-winged 410 sprint car victory and his first sprint car win during Indiana Midget Week.
Short had a look inside of McIntosh in the final corner but fell a car length short of the victory.
“I didn’t expect we’d be here yet because of how far off I’ve been, just trying to learn this big old sprint car,” McIntosh tipped. “It’s pretty, pretty awesome to be in victory lane already and I’m just thankful for this team and everyone behind me. I can’t say enough about how much they do to make us fast.”
Behind McIntosh and Short, Mihocko completed the podium ahead of Jason McDougal and Ricky Lewis.
Paragon sprint car winner A.J. Hopkins, Andy Bradley, Sterling Cling, Matt Thompson and Kyle Shipley closed the top 10.
The finish:
1. 71p-Cannon McIntosh, 2. 11p-Brady Short, 3. 5t-Tye Mihocko, 4. 17gp-Jason McDougal, 5. 11L-Ricky Lewis, 6. 04-A.J. Hopkins, 7. 75-Andy Bradley, 8. 34-Sterling Cling, 9. 26t-Matt Thompson, 10. 0g-Kyle Shipley, 11. 51-Jimmy Gardner, 12. 20-Jake Bland, 13. 14-Jadon Rogers, 14. 410-Brady Bacon, 15. 47-Charles Davis Jr., 16. P8-Andrew Prather, 17. 118-Scott Evans, 18. 53-Brayden Fox, 19. 9g-Dustin Griffitts, 20. 10g-Gabriel Gilbert, 21. 70-Jordan Kinser, 22. 14aj-Davey Ray (DNS).