BLOOMSBURG, Pa. — For the second consecutive night, a first-time venue on the USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget trail produced a familiar result for Tanner Thorson.
Twenty-four hours after trouncing the field by half a lap in the series’ debut at New Jersey’s Bridgeport Speedway, Thorson found a slightly different route to victory on Friday night in the first series event at Bloomsburg Fair Raceway.
With 10 laps remaining, Thorson found himself a distant second while Thomas Meseraull ruled the roost up front. However, a tangle that ensued as Meseraull was attempting to lap Glenn Waterland signaled the end of Meseraull’s victory ambitions.
As the new leader, Thorson never relented down the stretch to earn his series-leading sixth USAC National Midget feature win of the season in his Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports/AME Electrical – The Healing Tree – Eddie Gilstrap Motors/Spike/Stanton SR-11x.
Friday night at Bloomsburg marked Thorson’s fourth career Eastern Midget Week feature score, tying him with Chad Boat for the most all-time in the seven-year history of the series. The win was also the fourth time in Thorson’s USAC National Midget career that he’s won consecutive feature events, and the second time this year alone.
It was Thorson’s ninth overall USAC National feature win of the season between Midgets and Sprint Cars, which has already made 2021 Thorson’s most successful USAC season of his career.
“It’s definitely better to be lucky than good sometimes,” Thorson admitted. “I feel bad for Thomas and his crew. They were really, really fast. I don’t know if we would’ve had anything for him. My car was getting better and better there on that long green flag run, but I don’t know. Thomas was good; there’s no doubt about that. I’m really happy for my team. This Reinbold-Underwood team is awesome. I switched over to them, and it’s the best decision I’ve ever made in my racing career.”
Alex Bright led early but Meseraull tracked him down on the eighth lap to occupy the lead where he’d remain a sole proprietor of throughout the middle stages of the event, checking out to a commanding 1.6 second lead until 12th running Chase Randall slowed to a stop with a rear-end issue on lap 13.
Bright found his second wind on the lap-13 restart, sliding deep past Meseraull into turn three. Yet, Meseraull countered back under to retake the lead at the line by a car length before withstanding another Bright punch to the body on lap 14 in the same spot that Meseraull thwarted.
Within Meseraull’s sight as he worked turns one and two on the 21st lap was 19th running Waterland. As Waterland occupied the middle lane, Meseraull swept up from the bottom of turn one on entry toward the top, contact was made between Meseraull’s front bumper and Waterland’s rear bumper, sending both into a 180-degree spin before stopping.
It was a bitterly disappointing conclusion for Meseraull who returned to the fold and climbed back to 11th at the checkered flag.
Thorson maintained control of the race for the final nine laps, finishing .223 seconds ahead of Justin Grant. Cannon McIntosh, Bright and Emerson Axsom filled the top five.
“It’s always great when you can win at least one of the races on a swing like this. To be able to win two is pretty special,” Thorson said. “The competition is really stout. It used to be where you’re competing with about only five, six or seven guys that could win the race, but now I feel like the top-12 to 15 on almost any given night are in contention to win.”
Sill looking for his first USAC National Midget feature win for RMS, Grant was satisfied to finish second.
“That last restart was a great opportunity for us to try to close the gap and win the race, but I got goobered up on the berm off four and spun my tires down the front stretch,” Grant recalled. “This series is tough, and these guys are really tough. When you spin the tires like that, you can’t leave the entry open, so I had to protect on the first lap to not get mugged into one. That kind of killed my chance to really get ringing around the top and make some momentum to throw a slider on Tanner into three. From there, we were just trying to run him down. We were good, but he was good as well and it was just hard to close that gap.”
To see full results, turn to the next page.