BLOOMSBURG, Pa. — Brady Bacon finished what he started.
Bacon opened and closed USAC’s five-race Eastern Storm mini-series in familiar fashion. Bacon won the opener at Grandview Speedway on Tuesday and led flag-to-flag to capture Sunday night’s finale at Bloomsburg (Pa.) Fair Raceway.
Bacon became just the third driver to win both the first and last feature in a single Eastern Storm week, joining Levi Jones in 2007 and Robert Ballou in 2015.
Bacon’s superb performance from start to finish in Bloomsburg’s $6,000-to-win feature, however, was not enough to overtake Logan Seavey for the Eastern Storm title. Seavey had two victories and four overall podium finishes in five appearances, giving him the title by a mere five points over Bacon. Seavey wrapped it up with a solid third-place performance at Bloomsburg.
Rolling from the outside of the front row, Bacon stayed true to the high line early on as pole sitter and one-lap track record holder Chase Stockon worked the middle ground and repeatedly offered a challenge to Bacon’s stranglehold of the top spot a couple car lengths in arrears.
On the fifth trip around the three-eighths-mile dirt oval, Stockon saw his best opportunity at hand as he pulled even alongside Bacon for the race lead in turn two.
Charging down the back straightaway and into turn three, Stockon and Bacon swapped lines as Stockon went topside and Bacon carved through the middle. Reacting to the changeup, Bacon slid himself into turn one on lap six while Stockon trucked through the middle.
At the halfway mark of the 30-lap feature, Bacon was in the midst of his trouncing as he held a 1.8-second advantage over Justin Grant, who, on lap 14, had dove under Stockon in turn one then raced ahead at the exit of turn two to steal away second. Seavey spurted ahead of Stockon a lap later on 15 when he beat Stockon to the entry of turn three to position himself into second.
While Grant was able to close to within six-tenths of leader Bacon with five laps remaining, Bacon remained in solid shape as he put together a succession of qualifying-like laps as he resided alone at the front, rising the final interval to 1.251 seconds at the finish.
“Luckily, we got to the front early,” Bacon stated. “Stockon poked a nose there and I stepped it up a little bit. Sometimes you lose them when you should win them, and we’ll take this one tonight. We did a lot of crazy stuff to the car to be tight enough and I think it paid off.”
Grant collected four top-four finishes during Eastern Storm this past week. He earned a fourth at Grandview, followed by a first at Williams Grove and a third at Port Royal before finishing up second at Bloomsburg.
“I felt like our car was really good there,” Grant said. “I could hook the middle of one and two and drive off the bottom of two and make up some ground. At the end, we had a tire issue, and the thing was shaking like crazy, and things started to back away for me. Brady is really good at these flat racetracks and I’m typically not very good at these types of racetracks. We made big, big strides on the car and we feel really good about that going into this stretch of the season.”
Seavey had a head gasket issue on the primary Baldwin-Fox Racing/Fox Paving – AMSOIL/DRC/Claxton Chevy during hot laps, which required the team to go to the backup machine for the remainder of the night. Seavey promptly put his stamp on a first Eastern Storm championship with a third-place finish.
“We came out and I wasn’t sure what to expect because I haven’t run very great out here in the past,” Seavey recounted of his previous Bloomsburg experiences. “I started fourth there and I figured my car was really good in the feature after struggling in the heat race. (Crew chief) Ronnie (Gardner) gave me a great car for the feature. I was trying to figure out where I needed to be on the racetrack. I was able to get by Stockon and I knew that gave me a little bit of a buffer for the Eastern Storm points at least. I started moving around a little bit and, the last two or three laps, I actually found a little bit and closed the gap, but it was way too late by that point. It was another really great run and it’s what we needed for our season to keep putting this thing on the podium and we’ve done that. I’m really happy about our speed leaving here and excited for the rest of the year.”
USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship, Bloomsburg Fair Raceway, Bloomsburg, Pa., June 19, 2022
FATHEADZ EYEWEAR QUALIFYING: 1. Jake Swanson, 21AZ, Team AZ-15.993; 2. C.J. Leary, 77m, Michael-16.031; 3. Logan Seavey, 5, Baldwin/Fox-16.075; 4. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-16.202; 5. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-16.211; 6. Chase Stockon, 5s, KO-16.223; 7. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-16.314; 8. Emerson Axsom, 47BC, Clauson Marshall Newman-16.332; 9. Alex Bright, 20, Hummer-16.636; 10. Thomas Meseraull, 20m, Dyson-16.709; 11. Briggs Danner, 5G, Heffner South-16.732; 12. Timmy Buckwalter, 7, Lotier/Nemeth-16.904; 13. Matt Westfall, 33m, Marshall-17.189; 14. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-17.282; 15. Steven Drevicki, 19, DeGre-17.307; 16. Joey Amantea, 88J, Amantea-17.772; 17. Jadon Rogers, 14, Engler-NT.
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS & PIT STOP USA FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Briggs Danner, 2. Robert Ballou, 3. Brady Bacon, 4. Alex Bright, 5. Logan Seavey, 6. Jake Swanson, 7. Matt Westfall, 8. Steven Drevicki, 9. Jadon Rogers. 2:11.42 (New Track Record)
COMPETITION SUSPENSION (CSI) & ROD END SUPPLY SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Timmy Buckwalter, 2. Thomas Meseraull, 3. Emerson Axsom, 4. Chase Stockon, 5. C.J. Leary, 6. Justin Grant, 7. Joey Amantea. 2:17.58
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Brady Bacon (2), 2. Justin Grant (3), 3. Logan Seavey (4), 4. Chase Stockon (1), 5. Jake Swanson (6), 6. Briggs Danner (7), 7. Robert Ballou (9), 8. Emerson Axsom (10), 9. Thomas Meseraull (12), 10. C.J. Leary (5), 11. Alex Bright (11), 12. Matt Westfall (13), 13. Joey Amantea (15), 14. Jadon Rogers (16), 15. Steven Drevicki (14), 16. Timmy Buckwalter (8), 17. Brandon Mattox (17). 8:51.95 (New Track Record)