TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – In the 51-year history of the Tony Hulman Classic, only a select few drivers have won the race on three occasions.
They include Cary Faas, Levi Jones, and now Chris Windom, who snagged his third career rifle, and second-straight, following a spirited duel Wednesday night at the Terre Haute (Ind.) Action Track.
Windom assumed the lead from racelong leader Justin Grant with four laps remaining, which included a mix of wheel-to-wheel contact for both, broken hearts for one party and pure ecstasy for the other at the conclusion of the 30-lap main event.
Windom became the fourth driver to win consecutive Tony Hulman Classics, joining Steve Butler (1987-88), Levi Jones (2008-09) and Robert Ballou (2015-16), while his seventh USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car win at Terre Haute moved him to within one of Gary Bettenhausen and Jack Hewitt as the winningest driver in the history of the track.
“We’ve been trying to win a race all year long; we’ve been so close,” Windom exclaimed. “The crew has worked so hard to get us into this position. To put this car into victory lane here again, especially at the Hulman, is really cool.”
Windom’s nemesis throughout was Grant, who started from the pole, while Windom began his journey from the sixth position. Grant was poetic early on, constructing a commanding lead of nearly two seconds by the 10th lap while, simultaneously, Windom was working on Kyle Cummins for the runner-up spot, which he secured by diving underneath Cummins at the entry to turn three.
As soon as Windom raced into second, Grant’s interval over Windom disappeared as Windom caught up to Grant’s tail tank within three laps and commenced the pair’s battle through the back end of the field as they passed under the crossed flags signifying the halfway point.
As each opportunity at the lead flashed before Windom’s eyes, it was if somebody slapped his hands to keep him out of the cookie jar. First getting caught behind a lap car on lap 18, then blasting the turn four cushion on lap 19, Windom was relegated to constantly catching and regrouping rather than catching and passing for the time being.
With nine laps remaining, Windom found the clearance to by Grant. Windom set up a slider halfway down the back straightway and dove underneath Grant, up to the top, between turns three and four. Grant refused to let his guard down and ran his line without letting Windom occupying any of his space. That resulted in Windom sliding over the turn four curb.
“I think we had, by far, the car to beat,” Windom believed. “It was just track position. Once I got to second, he was almost a straightaway up. Lapped traffic was so tough because he’d slide a guy and I’d have to follow him and lose time and I’d have to run him back down. It was all about slide jobs and trying to time it the right way. At this place, you get strung out so fast. You can’t follow a guy when he slides a guy. You’ve got to try to keep your momentum up and carry speed to get back to him in the next corner. You’ve got to go the opposite direction of where the other guy goes.”
Grant had fended off every challenge presented to him by Windom. That is, until lap 27.
Windom, mimicking his first attempt to pass Grant in turn three five laps earlier, threw the slider once again. However, the outcome found a completely different result the second time around. Windom’s right rear-tire and Grant’s left front tire connected, sending Grant entirely airborne before landing on all fours, kissing the concrete wall, and powering on, albeit in the second position while Windom took first and sped away to a 2.607 second advantage.
“That was such a fast-paced race,” Windom remarked. “I ran Justin down three or four times; I slid him once and he crossed me back over. It was so slick down there, the second time I went to slide him, I got super backed into it and I backed up into the front of him. I’m sorry to get into him there, but he would say the same thing. We’re out here racing for a living and not out here to make best friends with everybody.”
With Windom having the checkered in sight exiting turn four on the final lap, the race was relegated to a halt with 15th running Chase Johnson flipping into the outside turn four wall/fence just in front of Windom. That brought out the red flag and created a green-white-checkered scenario with Grant directly behind Windom on the ensuing restart.
Windom’s restart was smooth as silk as he shot away to a healthy advantage instantaneously while Grant’s dreams crumpled in turn two as he bumped the cushion, lost ground from second that ultimately dropped him back to fifth. All the while, Windom ran away with it to collect his 29th USAC National Sprint feature win by a 1.939 sec. margin.
Windom’s win moved him into 16th on the all-time series win list alongside Kevin Thomas Jr. His victory total surpassed the total of 28 possessed by Don Branson, A.J. Foyt, Levi Jones and J.J. Yeley.
Meanwhile, Grant was barely denied a first Hulman Classic victory in his own right, and he explained the moment that took him out of contention for the win and dropped him back to a fifth place finish at the close.
“I’ve been on the other side of that before and I leaned on Chris a few laps earlier,” Grant wrote in a tweet. “(I) can’t be mad. It knocked the (Jacob’s) ladder off and I was hanging on after that. Wish we could’ve gotten back after him on that restart.”
Finishing second was Cummins, who had recently won his first feature event at Terre Haute in early May with the Midwest Sprint Car Series. His previous career best Hulman Classic result came in a ninth-place effort in 2017.
“This is kind of a win for us,” Cummins admitted. “Windom is unbelievable around here, and so is Brady. This is my first USAC podium here. Confidence here is all it takes, and I have a little bit now, so I can kind race with them, which makes it fun.”
Brady Bacon’s remarkable comeback story at the Hulman Classic was one that will be talked about for a long time to come. His night began with him earning his 40th career USAC National Sprint Car fast qualifying time, surpassing Levi Jones for fourth all-time. In the first heat race, Bacon nearly touched the clouds in a sky-high crash that sent him flipping viciously over the turn one wall.
Following the incident, Bacon and the team rolled out the backup car that he had run as the primary late in 2020 at Terre Haute and, most recently, earlier this month at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway. The three-time series champ raced from the tail (14th) to finish third and transfer to the B-Main. He made another charge from his ninth-starting spot to a third-place finish in the feature.
“I was pretty confident in my guys that everything was ready,” Bacon said. “I wasn’t really too nervous about going back out there. I knew I had to get by a lot of the slower cars in the B, and after a couple of laps, you get back into the rhythm and start thinking about how you can make your car even better.”
Click below for complete results.