From Pete Walton
ATLANTA, Ga. (December 6, 2017) – The 2017 United Sprint Car Series presented by K&N Filters Outlaw Thunder Tour National Champion, Jordon Mallett from Greenbrier, Arkansas collected the title as Champion of the USCS Southern Thunder regional series on the way to his National title during the 2017 racing season. The young sprint car driver made five visits to the www.rockauto.com USCS victory lane as the feature winner in USCS Southern Thunder Tour competition during 2017. Mallett had 18 top five finishes in the regional series, while he used a record of perfect attendance during the twenty-six events to accumulate the most (3918) Championship points. Mallett will collect top honors in the two dirt divisions of the USCS points system including the USCS Southern Thunder regional dirt series as well as the National Championship honors. He also finished in second place in the USCS Deep South Thunder Tour and in third place in the USCS Mid-South regional series standings.
Eleven-time USCS National Champion, Terry Gray from Bartlett, Tennessee had 3838 points to follow Mallett in the runner-up position in the final Southern Thunder Tour standings. Gray also had a solid season with 15 top five finishes and the results found him 24 times in the top ten.
As a team owner Terry Gray faired even better, as his team-mate Morgan Turpen had a series leading eight wins in the Southern Thunder regional series and a third-place finish in the final standings of the series, even though missing several events. Turpen is also the 2017 Champion of both the USCS Mid-South and the USCS Deep South regional series. She finished third in the National Championship chase as well after capturing the National title in 2015 and 2016 seasons.
USCS veteran driver, Brian Thomas from Pendergrass, Georgia followed Mallett, Gray and Turpen in the 2017 USCS Southern Thunder Tour standings with a fourth-place finish after accumulating 3112 Championship points. This was quite an improvement over Thomas’ eighteenth place standing in 2016, when a mid-season injury kept him out of competition for several months. Thomas also finished in sixth place in the USCS Outlaw Thunder Tour presented by K&N Filters National point standings for 2017.
The 2012 USCS Rookie of the Year, Jeff Willingham from Ripley, Mississippi finished the 2017 Southern Thunder Tour season in fifth position with 2845 points. He will also collect fourth place honors in the USCS National Championship and the USCS Deep South Thunder regional series to go with sixth place honors in the USCS Mid-South Thunder regional series during the January USCS banquet in Atlanta.
Tony Agin who is Ft. Myers, Florida’s traveling sprint car racer finished ahead of the next group of drivers in sixth place in the Southern Thunder regional series standings. Agin possibly towed the most miles to USCS 2017 events in his first full season as a United Sprint Car Series regular. Agin improved on past season performances and garnered enough National Championship points along the way to finish in fifth place in the National point standings. Agin will also receive accolades as the fifth-place finisher in the new USCS Deep South Thunder Tour portion of the schedule. He finished seventh in the USCS Mid-South regional series as well.
Scott Hunter from Concord, North Carolina finished in seventh place in the USCS Southern Thunder standings. Hunter was impressive in his first full season in winged sprint cars after being a four-time USAC Focus Midget Champion driver. Hunter garnered the 2017 United Sprint Car Series presented by K&N Filters Southern Thunder Tour regional series Rookie of the Year honors. He is one of the few Rookie drivers to ever win a USCS main event. He did so on July 23rd on the super-fast half-mile at Lancaster Speedway in Lancaster, South Carolina. The award goes annually to the driver who has earned the most Championship points in the regional series during their first season of competition prior to competing in 25 sprint car events. Hunter had 6 top five and 13 top ten finishes in series competition during the 2017 season.
Veteran USCS competitor Joe Larkin from Suwannee, Georgia who mostly competed in the Southern Thunder region drove his #33 Mark Brack wrenched sprint car to an eighth-place finish in the USCS Southern Thunder Tour standings. Larkin and Brack also joined the field for several USCS Mid-South regional series weekends to garner a top-ten finish in the USCS National point standings in tenth place.
The 2016 USCS National “Rookie of the Year”, fifteen-year-old Danny Sams III from Northport, Florida had a pair of top five finishes in second place and 13 top ten finishes to finish in ninth place in the final Southern Thunder regional series standing. The talented young gun would have possibly finished much higher after a third-place finish in 2016 in the National standings, but, a mid-season engine failure kept him out of competition for several weeks. He also finished in eighth place in both the 2017 National and 2017 USCS Deep South point standings as well.
Sprint car racing veteran, Bob Auld frpm Largo, Florida rounded out the USCS Southern Thunder Tour presented by K&N Fiters top ten driveris for the 22nd and 2018 season. Auld has been a regulat with the series for more than a decade and mostly competed in the USCS Southern Thunder region events.
The United Sprint Car Series presented by K&N Filters would like to gratefully thank its sponsoring partners for their involvement in the 2017 and 21st USCS Outlaw Thunder Tour: K&N Filters, www.rockauto.com,Engler Machine and Tool, Butlerbuilt, Wilwood Disc Brakes, Saldana Racing Products, Pyrotect Racing Cells, DMI/Bulldog Rear Ends. PRO Shocks, KSE Racing Products, DHR Suspensions, Schoenfeld Headers, Bell Helmets, DSR Fuel Systems, Brown and Miller Racing Solutions, Arizona Sport Shirts and Hero Graphics.]
The 2018 (22nd Anniversary) USCS Outlaw Thunder Tour and USCS Southern Thunder Tour kicks off at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Florida on Friday d Saturday, February 9th and 10th. A full schedule of 2018 USCS Outlaw Thunder Tour winged sprint car events will be available soon. For series rules and other info please visit www.uscsracing.com or call the series office at 770-460-7223 or 770-865-6097.
United Sprint Car Series Southern Thunder Tour presented by K&N Filters regional series Final 2017 Point Standings:
Pos. Car# Driver Point
1 14m Jordon Mallett 3918
2 10 Terry Gray 3838
3 10m Morgan Turpen 3345
4 67 Brian Thomas 3112
5 28 Jeff Willingham 2845
6 38 Tony Agin 2682
7 1x Scott Hunter 2355
8 33 Joe Larkin 2348
9 24d Danny Sams III 2343
10 83 Bob Auld 1876
11 07t Brandon Taylor 1840
12 47 Eric Riggins Jr 1687
13 67 Jake McLain 1680
14 43 Terry Witherspoon 1611
15 23 Lance Moss 1513
16 1s Joey Schmidt 1426
17 21b Brandon McLain 1270
18 99 Tanner Witherspoon 1192
19 4 Danny Smith 1125
20 9jr Derek Hagar 1069
21 22 Shawn Murray 1016
22 29 Jeff Oliver 985
23 89 Robbie Stillwaggon 908
24 116 Nick Snyder 835
25 82 Matt Kurtz 776
26 99 Don Warren 768
27 24 Danny Martin Jr 767
28 83 Mark Ruel Jr 756
29 3g Garrett Green 712
30 8 Dan Jones 630
31 29 Kyle Amerson 582
32 44 Trey Starks 561
33 14 Tyler Clem 560
34 14b Bo Barber 554
35 10b Mitch Brown 553
36 1a Lee Moore 543
37 67x Matt Linder 538
38 3a AJ Maddox 517
39 27 Curt Terrell 496
40 58 Nathan Emig 494
41 59 III Johnny Petrozelle 470
42 34 Darren Orth 464
43 6s Robbie Smith 452
44 47 Dale Howard 449
45 26 Marshall Skinner 446
46 42 Andy McElhannon 443
47 111 Brandon Grubaugh 416
48 07 Johnny Bridges 394
Tie 43m Michael Miller 394
50 21 Aubrey Black 390
51 22g Johnny Gilbertson 354
52 1 Matt Carr 330
53 24 Terry McCarl 305
54 14 Tony Stewart 304
55 13 Todd Fayard 302
56 95 Matt Covington 295
57 5d Zach Daum 286
58 w20 Greg Wilson 282
59 40 Howard Moore 280
60 21k Thomas Kennedy 279
61 5w Ryan Coniam 270
62 21 Butch David 262
63 m1 Mark Smith 260
64 1 Tyler Cross 254
65 0x Clint Weiss 240
66 m1 Micha McCall 230
67 43m AJ Parrish 220
68 12b Bryan Eckley 206
69 04 Jim Shuster 200
Tie 49 Mallie Shuster 200
71 3 Sammy Swindell 156
72 88 Tim Crawley 155
73 93 Jake Knight 134
74 25 Ray Bugg 130
Tie 23 Seth Bergman 130
76 sr4 Charlie Sweetser 126
Tie 61 Cody Howard 126
78 4 iv Bronzie Lawson IV 120
Tie 5s Sonny Stroud 120
80 X Bill Moore 116
81 12b Don Ryder 100
Tie 20 Frank Carlsson 100
Tie 43t Gavin Thomas 100
Tie 6 Sean Hosey 100