By Dick Jordan
The 4th Annual “Gold Crown Midget Nationals” at Tri-City Speedway in Pontoon Beach, Ill. are next on the calendar for the USAC Mopar National Midgets and series point leader Darren Hagen owns four feature victories at the 3/8-mile dirt track the past two years. Hagen enters the event with a huge 207-point lead over Tracy Hines after finishing fifth in last Saturday night’s race at Rossburg, Ohio.
Kyle Larson of Elk Grove, Calif., a Gold Crown “prelim” winner last year, scored a stunning victory in Saturday’s 25-lap “4-Crown Nationals” Midget race. He started ninth in the Keith Kunz Motorsports Toyota TRD/Bullet and caught Jerry Coons Jr. on lap 16. He led the final 10 laps to beat Brad Kuhn, Coons, Bobby East and Hagen.
Hagen also leads the 2012 USAC Mopar National Midget dirt standings, 78 points ahead of Chris Windom.
2012 MOPAR USAC NATIONAL MIDGET POINT STANDINGS
1-Darren Hagen-1,079, 2-Tracy Hines-872, 3-Bryan Clauson-851, 4-Caleb Armstrong-758, 5-Kyle Larson-671, 6-Bobby East-644, 7-Brad Kuhn-630, 8-Mario Clouser-599, 9-Rico Abreu-583, 10-Chris Windom-568.
2012 MOPAR USAC NATIONAL MIDGET DIRT POINT STANDINGS
1-Darren Hagen-646, 2-Chris Windom-568, 3-Bryan Clauson-528, 4-Brad Kuhn-523, 5-Jerry Coons Jr.-519, 6-Tracy Hines-488, 7-Kyle Larson-435, 8-Davey Ray-403, 9-Caleb Armstrong-350, 10-Rico Abreu-346.