BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Bryant Wiedeman has been a rookie who isn’t necessarily flashy, but has quietly spent his time learning and working himself into contention with the USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Series.
Those efforts paid off Friday night at Bloomington Speedway, where Wiedeman converted a pole starting spot into a fifth-place finish during the second round of Indiana Midget Week.
Wiedeman, 15, lost the lead to Chris Windom on the initial start but was able to maintain for much of the early laps with his Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports-prepared, Coleman Powersports-backed No. 01 Bullet-Toyota.
He stayed in podium contention for the first 18 laps, running third behind eventual winner Buddy Kofoid and Windom for much of that period once Kofoid passed him for second on the fifth lap around the quarter-mile dirt oval.
But Wiedeman admitted that he made a few small “rookie mistakes” in the final third of the race which hampered him and dropped him back several positions – forcing him to play catch-up in the closing laps.
“I feel like I laid down a pretty good pace. It’s just that these guys are so consistent here with USAC that you have to be on your game 24-7 when you’re racing against them,” Wiedeman tipped. “In this one, I wasn’t on my game the whole time and we found a couple of improvements we have to make going forward.
“I’m glad after that last restart that we could get back to salvage a fifth-place finish, but we definitely could have been a little further up, I feel like,” he added. “It’s all a learning process for me right now.”
Wiedeman made five USAC national midget starts late last season, with a best finish of 11th at Arizona Speedway as he learned the midgets following his transition out of micro sprint racing.
But this season, Wiedeman has started to come into his own, with Friday’s top-five effort standing as his career-high in USAC competition. He also has six top-five finishes in POWRi action as well.
While those are all good things to hang his hat on, Wiedeman’s focus after the race was on what he could have done better to improve on his Bloomington result.
“I feel like the restarts honestly hurt us,” he noted. “I feel like that’s where we lost a lot of our time. I feel like I really got in a rhythm there late in the [green-flag] runs, but then a restart would kill us a little bit. I just have to work on being consistent with these guys and hitting my marks on the restarts, and I think we’ll be good enough to contend for another top five before this weekend is out.”
With one top five under his belt against the stars of the United States Auto Club, Wiedeman hopes to make those kinds of finishes routine as he begins chasing a trophy to bring back home to Colby, Kan.
“I’m hoping this becomes like a ritual or something,” said Wiedeman with a grin. “I’m hoping to keep my consistent runs going with USAC, because we know we should be able to earn top fives or top threes every night. Hopefully we’ll pick up a win soon.
“I’m just looking for consistent nights right now, and the more you do that, the more likely you are that one of those will turn into a win when the circumstances fall the right way.
Wiedeman will return to action during Indiana Midget Week on Saturday night at Lawrenceburg Speedway. It’s his first time visiting the high-banked, three-eighths-mile dirt oval.
“I have no idea what to expect,” he admitted. “You here stories about that place for the midgets, but it looks wild on video and I believe it’ll be crazy in person, as well.”