TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Prior to Sunday night, there were just three drivers who could boast possession of three career Tony Hulman Classic victory rifles.
After Sunday night’s 52nd annual running was through, Robert Ballou had bumped that number to four.
The Rocklin, Calif., native scored the victory at the Terre Haute (Ind.) Action Track, quickly erasing a two-second disadvantage by masterfully maneuvering through lapped traffic and sliding past racelong leader Logan Seavey with seven circuits remaining in the 30-lap main event to capture the $10,000 top prize.
Ballou joined Cary Faas (1992, ’94 and ’98), Levi Jones (2005-08-09) and Chris Windom (2011, ’20 and ’21) on the Mount Rushmore of Hulman Classic competitors by earning his lead-tying third career victory in the event following back-to-back triumphs in 2015 and ’16.
In the present tense, the Rocklin, Calif. native is on a tear, having finished on the podium in five consecutive USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship outings, including two victories in his last three starts behind the wheel of the Ballou Motorsports/Suburban Subaru – Dragonfly Aviation – Berks Western Telecom/Triple X/Ott Chevy.
Ballou has invested an enormous amount of time and effort into renovating the Terre Haute Action Track throughout the winter and spring months along with his boss Scott Ronk and Bernie Stuebgen, among others.
In Sunday night’s event, Ballou invested quite a bit of time on the bottom of the race track to carve a path from his fifth starting position to the front. At the start, Ballou found the top shelf was not to his car’s liking quite yet.
Ultimately, he found his way up to the top and, ultimately, he found his way to the front to collect his 33rd career USAC National Sprint Car feature win.
“I figured the bottom was going to be excellent for 30 laps around the bottom of turns one and two, but it wasn’t so,” Ballou explained. “I was too tight on the top at the beginning, and I was just trying to bide my time. I knew before the start that I was in trouble; I was a little tight on the right rear. It’s a good thing I lost 50 pounds over the winter or else I probably would’ve ended up out at the Chick-Fil-A.”
Ballou was the quickest mover, rising up the leaderboard from fifth to second from the time he ducked to the inner rail in turn three on the opening lap until the time he crossed the start/finish line at the completion of lap one. Outside front row starter Brady Bacon took notice and took back control of second on lap two before relenting for good to Ballou, who slipped under in turns three and four on the third lap to reassume the runner-up position.
Meanwhile, Seavey led by 2.7 seconds at the halfway mark, while Ballou, Bacon, Justin Grant and C.J. Leary followed.
In the blink of an eye, Ballou found himself right on the back bumper of Seavey who was working to overtake the 17th-place car of Charles Davis Jr. as the laps dwindled to less than 10 to go.
Seavey passed Davis with a dive into turn three on lap 21 to momentarily stave off Ballou’s pressure, which only proved to be momentary. Ballou lined up Seavey off turn two on the 24th lap and shot to the bottom rail in the third turn before sliding back up and corralling the position at the exit of turn four.
Ballou subsequently crossed the starter’s stand out in front while Bacon was setting up his move to take second from Seavey, successfully doing so in turn one just as the red flag was displayed for 8th running Jadon Rogers who flipped up near the outside guardrail in turn four. He was uninjured.
While Ballou maintained his spot in the lead, Bacon relinquished his second position back to Seavey for the lap-25 restart. Bacon was forced to reload for the resumption, and it took three laps for him to slide job his way back into the second spot past Seavey in turn one. Bacon now had his work cut out for him, down more than a second to Ballou with only four laps remaining.
On the same day in which drivers vying for the pole position at the Indianapolis 500 pushed it to the limits for a four-consecutive-lap qualifying run, Bacon did virtually the same in his pursuit of Ballou, running his two fastest laps of the race on laps 28 and 29, which was the fastest overall in the field.
On the final lap, Bacon stood just about four car lengths back of Ballou and made one last ditch effort in turn three, puling even between turns three and four, before falling back into line behind Ballou up top, who rode the final turn to victory ahead of Bacon, Seavey, Grant and Leary.
Ballou’s Terre Haute victory came in race number two of ten for the Bubby Jones Master of Going Faster mini-series. The first event, held at Kansas City, Kansas’ Lakeside Speedway, was won by Bacon with Ballou finishing second.
“I wish it hadn’t come out,” Bacon lamented. “I had just passed for second right before that, and I think we would’ve had a shot to run Robert down. It took me a couple laps to get back by Logan after the red. Robert made some good decisions early in the race; he ran the bottom and got by me and that’s what put him in position to win at the end. We had a little bit better car at the end, but he had put himself in a spot where we didn’t have enough time to catch him. I should’ve been more aggressive through the middle of the race, but I was biding my time thinking I was going to have a good shot at the end. I almost ran him down and got him, but at these big fast half-miles, we’re both usually up front and it’s hard to beat us once the race plays out and one of us gets in front of the other.”
Seavey led a race-high 23 laps before finishing third in his Baldwin-Fox Racing/Fox Paving – AMSOIL/DRC/Claxton Chevy.
“When I first got to traffic, I was making some okay moves,” Seavey recalled. “Once I got to some faster cars, it slowed my closing speed down a little bit. I just got a little too soft there; it’s my fault. You’ve got to push hard for all 30 laps here to beat these guys. I backed off for a lap or two and I kind of slipped up down the back stretch. I could almost hear Robert and I didn’t want to protect and give up more time, but he got just enough to clear me. It’s heartbreaking when you lead that many laps and have a good racecar, a car that should win the race.”