Lawrenceburg win sets up big USAC weekend for Bacon

Brady battles with Cory Bruns at Jacksonville (Rob Kocak Photo)

Brady battles with Cory Bruns at Jacksonville (Rob Kocak Photo)
Brady battles with Cory Bruns at Jacksonville (Rob Kocak Photo)
From Bill Wright

April 14, 2015 – Last week, in USAC National Sprint Car competition, Brady Bacon finished seventh at Lawrenceburg Speedway in Indiana. Last Saturday night, he conquered the high banks in weekly competition aboard the Hoffman Racing #69. The Broken Arrow, Oklahoma driver added a second place finish in his own #99 in MOWA competition Friday night in Jacksonville, Illinois. This weekend finds USAC battling in Indiana with the MSCS series at Bloomington Speedway Friday night and Tri-State Speedway near Haubstadt on Saturday.

The team had a reason for racing locally at Lawrenceburg Saturday. “We have a new XXX (chassis),” says Brady. “It’s a new design they’re working on. We wanted to run it before we took it to a USAC race to make sure it worked for us and everything. We wanted to get a little better than we were the week before there.”

Starting third in his heat race, Brady would quickly take the lead and the checkers. “The car was really good in the heat,” he says. “Everything we did to the car made it better. We made progress all night and we should be better the next time we go there.”

The main event went just as smoothly. “We were able to start on the pole and lead every lap,” says Brady. “The car was really smooth. We’re looking forward to getting to Bloomington and Haubstadt this weekend with USAC and see where we’re at.”

Friday saw the Brady Bacon Racing #99 at Jacksonville Speedway. After drawing a heat starting spot outside row two, Brady would go on to finish second, earning a spot in the Dash. “We had a really good car at Jacksonville,” he says. “We were able to go from fourth to second in the heat. There just wasn’t much passing in the heats.”

He would line up outside row two for the feature, after finishing fourth in the Dash. “Jerrod (Hull) got out to a lead,” says Brady. “I had to work a few laps to get into second. We were able to run him down, but the last half of the race I didn’t have power-steering. I may have had a shot at a slide job with power-steering, but I was a little less willing to take risks without it.”

It was still a solid finish. “We settled for second,” says Brady. “Hopefully, we got our issues out of the way on the first race. We may run with the All Stars in Bedford, Pennsylvania this Sunday (with the wing car).”