Loyet wins Milton Race of Champions at Jacksonville Speedway!

Brad Loyet with family and crew in victory lane at Jacksonville Speedway.

Brad Loyet with family and crew in victory lane at Jacksonville Speedway.
Brad Loyet with family and crew in victory lane at Jacksonville Speedway.
From Bill Wright

October 13, 2015 – Brad Loyet and the Loyet Motorsports/Vacuworx Global #o5 team picked up its fourth win in the last month and half at the Jacksonville Speedway in Illinois last Saturday night. The Ron Milton Race of Champions served as the finale for the MOWA Series as well. This Friday night, the Sunset Hills, Missouri driver will take to the high banks of Lawrenceburg Speedway in Indiana with the World of Outlaws.

Brad would start fifth in his heat Friday at Jacksonville. “The track was slick on Friday,” he says. “We were able to get up to second, and that put us in the Dash. I was feeling pretty good about the Dash.”

He would start fourth. “We were able to get to second pretty quickly,” says Brad. “We had a good car. I was o.k. with running second, because that’s a good place to start the feature. Unfortunately, we blew a right rear tire. It tore off pretty much everything on the right side of the car.”

Brad would be relegated to a sixth starting spot in the feature. “The track was gone,” he says. “It was slick from the bottom to the wall. It was hard to run the top and get a slider to pass. We just started rolling through the middle to keep my momentum up. We were able to get by a couple of cars and ended up fourth. I think we were a much better car than that, but we were kind of a victim of circumstances. We did the best we could.”

The heat went well again on Saturday. He would start sixth. “The track was heavy,” says Brad. “We were in an early heat, and I didn’t think there would be a whole lot of passing. But we had the car really dialed in, and I was able to get up to second.”
Brad would start outside row one for the Dash. “We were able to set sail there, and lead the whole thing,” he says. “That was really good for us, because the Dash paid $500 on Saturday.”

That would put him on the pole of the main event, and he would lead all 25 laps. “We got trucking along pretty good in the feature,” says Brad. “About halfway through the race, I got into the back of a lapped car and pushed the nose wing back on the hood. That made it a real challenge the last half of the race, but we were able to hold on. It was one of those nights where the curb got gnarly and you had to hit it just right. I felt we made more good laps than bad laps. We were able to pick up the win, which was awesome for us.”

It was Brad’s first win in a sprint car at Jacksonville, but not his first time in Victory Lane there. “We’d been really close at Jacksonville before,” he says. “I’d won in a micro and a midget there. It’s always nice to win in every class you’ve raced at a track. That’s pretty cool.”