9/23/2019
Baughman, Bacon drive away to feature wins on Night 2 of Hockett-McMillin Memorial at Lucas Oil Speedway
WHEATLAND, Missouri - The stage is set for the grand finale of the 9th annual Jesse Hockett-Daniel McMillin Memorial at Lucas Oil Speedway after Josh Baughman earned the ASCS Winged Sprint victory and Brady Bacon captured the POWRi WAR Sprint win.
The open-wheel crown jewel event concludes on Saturday with a $10,000-to-win ASCS feature and the WAR feature paying $3,077 to the victor. Both will go 30 laps in the memory of Hockett, a former open-wheel champion, and the late McMillin, his cousin and championship crew chief.
Baughman emerged on Night 2 of the crown jewel open-wheel event in a field of 69 ASCS Sprints. The Texan led all 25 laps to pick up the $3,000 winner's check for the ASCS Sprints, outlasting Seth Bergman and numerous restarts.
"It's pretty cool to roll this car out of the trailer like this," Baughman said. "I don't know how many races we've had this year, but it's not near as many as I used to run. There are 70 cars in these pits and half of them can win on any given night.
"To beat these guys and be fast pulling out of the trailer ... it's pretty cool. Tomorrow's another night."
The race had a rough beginning as four cars, including series points leader Sam Hafertepe, tangled in turn one of the opening lap to bring out a red flag. Kory Bales' car wound up on its top, but he walked away without injury.
Pole-starting Baughman led Roger Crockett and Tim Crawley through the opening five laps. Another red halted things at that point when Scott Bogucki, third in series points, took a wild flip in turns three and four. He also escaped without injury, but failed to finish the feature for a second straight night.
Baughman set sail after the restart and opened up a straightaway-margin lead over Crockett by lap 10. His command was still nearly two seconds as Bergman sailed past Crockett and into the runner-up position before another caution waved on lap 18 as Brad Bowden wound up on his side in turn four.
The final seven laps clicked off without incident as Baughman, of Odessa, Texas, earned his second ASCS feature win by a .621-second margin over Bergman with Crockett third and Bacon - pulling off double duty after winning the non-wing feature - was fourth.
Blake Hahn, winner of Thursday night's ASCS feature, was victorious in one of the B Features to earn his way into the main event on Friday. He started 18th and rallied to seventh.
Based on points through two preliminary nights, the first eight starters in the Saturday feature will be Baughman and Hahn on the front row, Crockett and Derek Hagar row two, Dylan Westbrook and Paul Nienhiser row three and Ayrton Gennetten and Jack Dover on row four.
Bacon brings it home in WAR Sprints: Brady Bacon led only two laps, but they were the most important ones. Bacon passed Marion Clouser with two laps to go as 32 WAR cars were in action seeking valuable points for Saturday night's finale.
Bacon, of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, picked up $1,377 for the win. He started eighth and rallied into the top three by lap 10, passed Anthony Nicholson for second by lap 15 and made the winning pass coming out of turn four, edging past Clouser in the low groove at the start-finish line with two to go.
"My plan was to originally run the bottom. I thought the top would go away," Bacon said. "He was wheeling it pretty good and not making any mistakes. I had to go up there and track him down and he kind of messed up. I pulled up close to him, ran the bottom and actually got it right.
"He came back at us a couple of times. It definitely wasn't over when I got the lead."
Clouser, of Auburn, Illinois, said it was a heart-breaking defeat.
"It's tough when you're leading sometimes because you just don't know where the track is better at," Clouser said. "We were making some good ground off of (turn) two the middle of the race, but we were giving up some down here in three and four and he found something on the bottom.
"I don't know. It's tough," Clouser added. "That's the difference between a guy who runs 40 races a month and a guy who works 40 hours a week. It's a tough deal. I'm frustrated. I really thought we had that deal. Man, we were close."
Nicholson started from the pole and sprinted away to the lead, but by lap three Clouser had closed in from his second-row starting spot and those two dueled - sometimes side by side - for the lead until a caution on lap 10 slowed the action.
Two laps after the restart. Clouser went around Nicholson coming out of turn two to take his first lead of the race with Bacon third and Logan Seavey fourth. Bacon moved into second after the race's final caution, with 10 laps to go and gave chase to Clouser before pulling off the winning pass.
Seavey finished third with Nicholson fourth and Dave Darland came home fifth.
Following two nights of points collecting, 10 WAR drivers are locked into the feature for Saturday. They will take part in a "Pole Shuffle" in head-to-head battles with the pairings: Round 1 - Joe B. Mille, Brian Beebe, Mitchell Moore and Garrett Aitken; Round 2 - Mario Clouser, Wyatt Burks and the two Round 1 survivors; Round 3 - Zach Daum, Logan Seavey and the two Round 2 top finishers; Round 4 - Brady Bacon, Chris Windom and the Round 3 top two.
Each round features four cars going for two laps, the top two advancing. The first 10 starters in the main event are determined by the finishes.
Article Credit: Lyndal Scranton
