HAUBSTADT, Ind. — The conclusion of the fourth race of Indiana Midget Week Sunday night at Tri-State Speedway saw the third different driver jump to the top of the mini-series point standings.
On the strength of a runner-up finish to first-time USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Series winner Kyle Cummins, defending series champion Chris Windom took over the Indiana Midget Week point lead by 13 over former leader Buddy Kofoid.
Windom is aiming to deliver CB Industries its second straight Indiana Midget Week championship, after team owner Chad Boat and driver Kyle Larson roared to the title last year by winning four of six races.
While Windom knows consistency is what wins the big prize during a stretch like Indiana Midget Week, he’s also eager to break into victory lane — something he hasn’t done through the first four rounds of this year’s Hoosier State excursion.
“I’m sick of running second,” said Windom, a three-time podium finisher through the first four Indiana Midget Week races. “I felt like we had the best car for most of the race [Sunday at Tri-State], but one of those reds just came out perfectly at the wrong time. I had just slipped by him and showed [Cummins] where I was at … and he took my line away after that and didn’t make any mistakes. It sucks to be as fast as we were all night and still come up second, but we’re going to keep plugging away at things.
“[Consistency] is what it takes if you want to win the Indiana Midget Week title,” Windom added. “If you’re not good enough to win, sometimes you have to salvage a second or a third and not do anything stupid and crash. I think we’ve seen quite a bit of that already this week. … There’s still a long way to go.”
Kofoid started off hot — with finishes of fourth or better in the first three Midget Week races, including a win in the second round at Bloomington (Ind.) Speedway — but cooled slightly with a 10th-place run Sunday night on a tricky, juiced-up Tri-State surface that was aided by a rain shower after qualifying.
The Penngrove, Calif., native tipped that it wasn’t just the rain which hampered him slightly, but the fact that Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports has traditionally struggled at the Haubstadt, Ind., quarter mile in the past.
“Haubstadt is just one of those tracks for us that we don’t have a handle on,” Kofoid explained. “I don’t think our package is really where it needs to be for that track. It’s just a place where you have to figure it out, so we just have to keep working on it. A lot of the guys that run well there have run there, probably, 50 times more than I’ve ever been there because the midgets only come there once or twice a year.
“It makes it tough to have consistency or figure out things, but we’re still working on it.”
Though he fell to second in the standings, Kofoid maintained confidence that he’s still in the thick of the Indiana Midget Week points battle as he attempts to give KKM its sixth Midget Week title.
“I definitely don’t think we’re out of Midget Week,” the 19-year-old said. “That’s been one of my biggest goals for this year, is to win Midget Week. And I think the rest of the tracks are ones that we’ll run well at, though Circle City [Raceway] will be a new one for all of us. We were second at Gas City last year to Kyle [Larson], and we had good speed at Putnamville … ran third there, I think. Kokomo’s been a lot better to us lately, as well. So we’ll just put our heads together for the next four nights and see what we have.
“I don’t want to say it’s about putting Tri-State behind us, because those are the nights that we really need to think about sometimes, even more than the nights we win or run well on,” added Kofoid. “But we’ll move on to the next one and see if we can get some more wins to put us in position for a Midget Week championship.”
Windom simplified Kofoid’s thoughts into one statement that sums up the thinking of all those still hoping to bring home the big trophy at the end of Indiana Midget Week.
“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” he noted. “You have to be smart throughout each night to get the job done.”
Behind Windom and Kofoid in the Indiana Midget Week standings is Logan Seavey, the only past Indiana Midget Week champion in the running this year. Seavey is third and is 27 points behind Windom.
Justin Grant and Daison Pursley are fourth and fifth, respectively, and also within striking distance should the top three encounter issues during the second half of Indiana Midget Week.
Grant is 36 points adrift of the top spot, while Pursley stands 40 points off the Indiana Midget Week lead.
Racing during the 17th edition of Indiana Midget Week resumes Wednesday night, June 9, at Circle City Raceway. Tickets for that event can be purchased by clicking here.