TRENTON, N.J. — Billy Pauch Jr. will attempt to make a comeback during the Indoor Auto Racing Championship’s East Coast Dirt Nationals inside the Cure Insurance Arena in Trenton, N.J., on Feb. 24-25.
The East Coast Dirt Nationals are being run for the first time in three years.
Pauch is among seven drivers who qualified for each of the three previous runnings.
Pauch has the best average finish of the drivers who qualified for all three editions. Pauch finished 19th in the 2017 event, but he’s run second (2018) and third (2020) in the past two races. He’ll be looking for his first victory in the $5,000-to-win feature for 600cc Micro Sprints.
Pauch will also storm into the Cure Insurance Arena as a sentimental favorite.
His outdoor season was cut short last year when he crashed his modified at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway, suffering back injuries. Since recovering, Pauch competed in the Atlantic City Indoor Auto Racing Series Gambler’s Classic earlier this year and ran in the Sunshine Swing at All Tech (Fla.) Speedway in a dirt modified last week.
Pauch noted that, while his recovery has gone well, he still has physical reminders of his accident.
“After running the Indoor TQ race, my back felt pretty good. Running the dirt modified at All Tech was a little tougher which surprised me a little,” Pauch said. He will need to use all of his grit and determination racing on the temporary dirt oval built on the arena floor.
Among the seven wheel-twisters who have qualified for each of the three previous East Coast Dirt Nationals A mains, only one of them is a race winner in Trenton. Kenny Miller III and Brian Carber are tied for the second-best average finish in the Trenton dirt shows, with an average finish of 9.66.
Alex Bright is next with an average of 10.33. Then comes Kyle Spence, who has an average of 13.00. Ironically, Spence, Bright and Pauch will be teammates for this year’s running of the East Coast Indoor Dirt Nationals. Each of them will pilot a Rob Hummer-owned, Rodota Trucking & Excavating micro inside the Cure Insurance Arena.
Erick Rudolph did not enter the first Indoor Dirt Nationals in 2017, but he won the second edition of the race in 2018 and nearly pulled off a repeat in 2020, leading late in the race only to be passed by Jon Keller, Miller and Pauch on the final lap — leaving him fourth at the checkered flag. Keller, of course, is remembered for climbing his way from the E main all the way to the A main, starting dead last in the 50-lap race and winning in dramatic fashion.
Friday night’s program will feature the field split into 10 heat races. The top 60 in points, earned from finishing positions and passing points, will advance to Friday’s four, 20-lap A main qualifiers. The top three in each of these events transfer directly to Saturday night’s $5,000-to-win A main.
Finishing positions and passing points from Friday will then set the lineups for Saturday’s qualifiers for the remainder of the drivers who fail to finish in the top three on night one.