PUTNAMVILLE, Ind. — Kevin Thomas Jr. romped from 14th starting spot to win Saturday night’s Bill Gardner Sprintacular at Lincoln Park Speedway.
Thomas drove his KT Motorsports/Dr. Pepper – McDonald’s – KT Construction Services/DRC/Speedway Chevy into the lead only six laps from the end of the 40-lap event. Thomas earned $7,000 for his fourth USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Series victory of the season.
Saturday night’s 13 spot advancement to the top of the leaderboard is one which Thomas estimates as a personal-best in his storied career with many chapters still yet to be written.
“I’ve never won from that far back, I don’t think,” Thomas pondered. “That was a lot of fun there, just battling through the field and doing whatever we had to do to win.”
Thomas’ winning night was initiated by a poor qualifying, run by his standards. Much to his chagrin, a runner-up finish behind Jake Swanson in heat race one prevented him from a surefire top-10 starting spot if he had won said heat.
“We ran fourth last night and we weren’t real pleased with it,” Thomas remembered. “Then, I did an awful job of qualifying. The crew worked on it and worked on it after not winning the heat race set us back a little bit, but they got the tune on it tonight. I’m just real fortunate to drive this race car with these guys working on it and the people we have behind us.”
Justin Grant took the early lead from outside the front row, while Brady Bacon worked his was to second on lap six and gave chase. Bacon slid past Grant for the lead on lap 15.
Grant remained in stride with Bacon and regained the lead on lap 20.
However, a new contender had entered the fray on the bottom with Thomas breezing around the infield tires and into second by Bacon on the 22nd lap and coming within a single car length of Grant at the stripe.
With seven laps remaining and amid the negotiating of the tail end of the field, Thomas got the run he so desperately needed on the bottom of turns one and two, edging ahead by a half car length into turn three. As Grant put the nose straight into the cushion at the entry of turn three, Thomas was smooth as silk on the low line, beating Grant to the line by the same half car length margin.
Grant managed to get right back to Thomas’ rear bumper coming to the white flag as he took a gander for himself at the bottom in turns three and four. Thomas ventured through the middle of one and two on the final lap as Grant repositioned himself at the top.
“It’s easy to not screw up in the middle,” Thomas explained. “You don’t have to worry about anything except maybe a guy’s right rear. One end (of the track) is way different than the other. We were really good down here through the middle and really, everywhere we went, I had the car to maneuver around, but down there, I’m a sissy when it comes to running the top like that. I just wasn’t going to do it. I just stuck to the bottom.”
Midway down the back straight on the 40th and final go-around, Grant trailed by five car lengths, but made up substantial ground in turns three and four. Thomas followed the final car on the lead lap, Robert Ballou, on the bottom, then drifted wide at the exit onto the front straightaway crossing the line just a car length ahead of Grant. The .080-second margin of the victory was the closest finish of the season through 19 events.
Following Thomas and Grant were series point leader Bacon, C.J. Leary and Shane Cottle, who won the accompanying USAC Midwest Regional Midget feature earlier in the evening.
Grant led early and often, more so than any other driver in the field, on his way a runner-up finish aboard his TOPP Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – MPV Express – TOPP Industries/Maxim/Kistler Chevy.
“I would’ve liked to have come out on top of that one; we were close but not quite,” Grant lamented. “My guys gave me a great racecar. This car is fast what seems like night-in and night-out. We’re up here (on the podium) a lot, but you hate to let ones get away. I was pretty committed to the top there, and I was going to just keep beating it to death and see if we could make it work. I’m not very good at running the bottom, so I just try to pound the curb until it doesn’t work.KT and I were both racing hard and wanted to win. It’s what puts on good races and that’s why we like doing this; it’s a lot of fun.”
Bacon finished third.
“We’ve had cars good enough to compete for wins,” Bacon said. “We just kind of have to wait for the circumstances to come our way. We had a shot, but KT was just better than us tonight. We’ll just try to get a little bit better. We’re not really good when the cushion gets that big. That kind of challenged us a little bit, but actually, KT was better than us down where our bread and butter is on the bottom. So, I was kind of searching around and I was actually a little better on the top in three and four. I’m just not quite as good at doing that than some people. I think we were kind of equal at the end, but KT just got himself into position to win.”
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (12 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature) 1. Cole Bodine, 2. Carson Garrett, 3. Brayden Fox, 4. Robert Ballou, 5. Stephen Schnapf, 6. Collin Ambrose, 7. Brady Short, 8. Nate McMillin, 9. Jake Scott, 10. Tim Creech, 11. Zach Daum, 12. Alec Sipes, 13. Ryan Thomas, 14. Shey Owens, 15. Gabriel Gilbert, 16. Cindy Chambers, 17. Ryan Bond, 18. Brandon Mattox. NT
FEATURE: (40 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr. (14), 2. Justin Grant (2), 3. Brady Bacon (3), 4. C.J. Leary (4), 5. Shane Cottle (6), 6. Jake Swanson (7), 7. Tanner Thorson (5), 8. Kyle Cummins (18), 9. Riley Kreisel (1), 10. Cannon McIntosh (12), 11. Chase Stockon (16), 12. Cole Bodine (8), 13. Carson Short (19), 14. Carson Garrett (10), 15. Paul Nienhiser (13), 16. Brayden Fox (11), 17. Robert Ballou (20), 18. Chris Windom (15), 19. Mario Clouser (9), 20. Stephen Schnapf (21), 21. Collin Ambrose (22), 22. Harley Burns (17). NT