Ocala, Florida (February 13, 2025)………It’s a somewhat unfamiliar sight seeing Brady Bacon wheel a car not adorned in the colors of the Dynamics, Inc. No. 69 in USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship competition.
One thing that is a familiar sight, however, is witnessing the four-time USAC National Sprint Car champion from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma in victory lane.
Bacon, in just his fourth appearance with the series behind the wheel of the Chris Dyson Racing/Concord American Flagpole – Macri Concrete/Triple X/Rider Chevy No. 20, put it back in the circle at Florida’s Ocala Speedway for the sixth time in his career during Thursday night’s round four of Winter Dirt Games XVI.
For Chris Dyson Racing, the victory was their first USAC National Sprint Car triumph in six years, seven months and 25 days, since a June 2018 score with Thomas Meseraull at New York’s Weedsport Speedway.
One night after Justin Grant edged closer to Bacon for second place on the all-time USAC National Sprint Car win list, Bacon gained one back in the win column with his 59th career series victory. That puts Bacon just three wins behind Dave Darland (62) for the number one spot on the list, and four ahead of Grant (55) who ranks third.
Bacon is competing on a part-time USAC schedule this season, so there are limited opportunities for him to make some headway in closing the gap on Darland while maintaining his pace ahead of Grant. Nonetheless, Bacon took advantage of the opportunity on Thursday night at the 3/8-mile, racing by racelong leader Daison Pursley with 12 circuits remaining of the 30-lapper to earn his sixth career Winter Dirt Games win at Ocala, second all-time behind Grant’s eight.
“We’ve got two more nights here in Florida and the rest of our schedule is on tracks that we typically do pretty well on,” Bacon remarked regarding his pursuit of becoming the winningest USAC National Sprint Car driver of all-time. “It might be harder to keep Justin behind me than it is to catch Dave in front of me. He’s probably going to have a good year too.”
Bacon’s latest victory also extended his record to 15 consecutive years of winning at least one USAC National Sprint Car feature, a streak which dates back to 2011. Furthermore, it’s only his ninth career USAC National Sprint Car win not under the Dynamics, Inc. banner. Over the years, he’s picked off victories with Brady Bacon Racing (5), Dooling-Hayward Motorsports (2), Kasey Kahne/Curb Racing (1) and now Chris Dyson Racing (1).
An up-and-down week has been part and parcel for Bacon throughout Winter Dirt Games. Bacon opened with a third and a ninth at Volusia before his first night at Ocala was thwarted by a mag box issue while running third during the feature, then later, a flat right rear tire, which relegated him to a 21st place result.
For the second straight evening, Pursley bolted out to the early lead from his outside front row starting spot and remained there for the bulk of the distance. Pursley kept pole starter Bacon at bay to the tune of four or five car lengths throughout much of the first half of the event.
But on lap 19, while attempting to surge past the tail-end lead lap cars of Jadon Rogers and Gunnar Setser, Pursley chose the higher lane to do so. In turn, the bottom lane was left open for Bacon to get in a word edgewise. Bacon sprinted past Pursley, and within a few laps, disposed of Rogers, Setser and Stevie Sussex, to gain some valuable breathing room.
“(Daison) has been really fast all week but I knew we were really good; traffic is really tough here; and the track changes really fast,” Bacon explained. “The top of three and four was kind of going away to where you really couldn’t get around traffic that way, so I was trying to experiment with lines in one and two to get a better run down the back stretch.”
A slew of stoppages buffered Bacon’s vision of victory momentarily. The race was halted for the first time on lap 23 when Tom Harris (22nd) slowed to a stop atop turn four with a flat right rear tire. On lap 27, Ricky Lewis (17th) slowed with a flat right rear tire. Then, on the lap 27 restart, Kale Drake (14th) went for a wild ride, flipping over several times in turn three, but was able to walk away.
All the incidents did was delay Bacon’s path to victory, and with a clear track ahead of him for the final four laps, he never lost grip as he crossed the stripe 0.926 seconds ahead of Pursley for the win. For Pursley, it was his fourth consecutive podium finish to start off the USAC season. Justin Grant grabbed third with Mitchel Moles fourth and series point leader Kyle Cummins fifth.
“I’m just really happy for this new team, for me. We’ve raced a little bit together in Silver Crown, but we’re new to sprint cars this year,” Bacon said. “It hasn’t been the most fruitful week as of yet, but we’ve had a really fast car, and we finally got it done tonight. I think we’ve had a car capable of doing it for a few nights and we finally put all the pieces together.”
The event was held following a storm that rolled in just before hot laps, dousing the surface with even more moisture than was already added in the normal track preparation process. Bacon hit the sweet spot early on by qualifying well and transferring through his heat race, which set him up for a prime position come feature time.
“It’s a super tough field up front and qualifying is super tight,” Bacon mentioned. “I think maybe going out as the second car in the second group, this place gets a little grease on it for a couple cars. That hurt us but it was a blessing in disguise as we got to start on the pole for the feature. You’ve got to take them however you can get them with a lot of good cars, especially when the track is this heavy, you’ll take the track position any day.”
Briggs Danner was back in fine form after an early race tangle knocked him out of the previous night’s feature. After being buried 24th in the starting lineup for Thursday’s feature, Danner steadily worked his way forward, and in the end, his plus-13 performance to finish 11th led him to hard charger honors for the night.
.010 seconds is all that separated Gunnar Setser from C.J. Leary at the end of the semi-feature, which proved to be the closest finish of any race thus far throughout the USAC National Sprint Car season. For his narrow win, Setser was tabbed as the recipient of the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: February 13, 2025 – Ocala Speedway – Ocala, Florida – Winter Dirt Games XVI – 3/8-Mile Dirt Track
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-13.911, 2. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-14.096, 3. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-14.138, 4. C.J. Leary, 21AZ, Team AZ/Curb-Agajanian-14.151, 5. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-14.211, 6. Daison Pursley, 86, CBI-14.226, 7. Brady Bacon, 20, Dyson-14.245, 8. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming/Swanson-14.284, 9. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-14.308, 10. Carson Garrett, 15, BGE-14.340, 11. Gunnar Setser, 5G, KO-14.363, 12. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-14.364, 13. Kale Drake 2B, 2B Racing-14.384, 14. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-14.472, 15. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-14.545, 16. Harley Burns, 16, Britt Aero-14.567, 17. Joey Amantea, 88J, JPA-14.611, 18. Eddie Tafoya Jr., 51T, Tafoya-14.631, 19. Kobe Simpson, 21K, Simpson-14.702, 20. Stevie Sussex, 5, Baldwin/Fox-14.735, 21. Mark Smith, M1, Smith-14.737, 22. Matt Goodnight, 39G, Goodnight-14.745, 23. Tom Harris, 84, Harris-14.756, 24. Ricky Lewis, 74B, Lewis-14.759, 25. Nic Harris, N2, Harris-14.809, 26. Jadon Rogers, 66, Amati-14.839, 27. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-15.065, 28. Kayla Roell, 4K, Roell-15.154, 29. Troy Carey, 45N, Carey-15.228, 30. Kyle Jones, 79, Hall-15.695, 31. Eddie Vancil, 7v, Vancil-16.200, 32. Oliver Akard, 32, Rase-NT.
ROD END SUPPLY FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Joey Amantea, 2. Kale Drake, 3. Mark Smith, 4. Justin Grant, 5. Logan Seavey, 6. Troy Carey, 7. Nic Harris, 8. Chase Stockon. 1:56.629
CAR IQ SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Carson Garrett, 2. Kyle Cummins, 3. Daison Pursley, 4. Eddie Tafoya Jr., 5. Kevin Thomas Jr., 6. Jadon Rogers, 7. Matt Goodnight, 8. Kyle Jones. 1:57.567
K1 RACEGEAR THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kobe Simpson, 2. Tom Harris, 3. Brady Bacon, 4. Mitchel Moles, 5. Briggs Danner, 6. Gunnar Setser, 7. Eddie Vancil, 8. Robert Ballou. 1:58.787
HOOSIER TIRE FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Stevie Sussex, 2. Ricky Lewis, 3. Harley Burns, 4. Hayden Reinbold, 5. Jake Swanson, 6. C.J. Leary, 7. Kayla Roell. NT
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (12 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Gunnar Setser, 2. C.J. Leary, 3. Robert Ballou, 4. Jadon Rogers, 5. Chase Stockon, 6. Nic Harris, 7. Matt Goodnight, 8. Troy Carey, 9. Eddie Vancil, 10. Kyle Jones, 11. Oliver Akard. NT
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Brady Bacon (1), 2. Daison Pursley (2), 3. Justin Grant (6), 4. Mitchel Moles (4), 5. Kyle Cummins (5), 6. Jake Swanson (12), 7. Logan Seavey (3), 8. C.J. Leary (11), 9. Carson Garrett (7), 10. Kevin Thomas Jr. (16), 11. Briggs Danner (24), 12. Robert Ballou (17), 13. Joey Amantea (8), 14. Hayden Reinbold (14), 15. Jadon Rogers (23), 16. Stevie Sussex (10), 17. Harley Burns (18), 18. Gunnar Setser (13), 19. Eddie Tafoya Jr. (19), 20. Tom Harris (21), 21. Kobe Simpson (9), 22. Kale Drake (15), 23. Ricky Lewis (22), 24. Mark Smith (20). NT
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-18 Daison Pursley, Laps 19-30 Brady Bacon.
**Kayla Roell flipped during the fourth heat. Kyle Jones flipped during the semi. Kale Drake flipped on lap 27 of the feature.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Kyle Cummins-303, 2-Daison Pursley-301, 3-Justin Grant-293, 4-Logan Seavey-252, 5-Mitchel Moles-238, 6-Brady Bacon-233, 7-Jake Swanson-221, 8-Briggs Danner-210, 9-C.J. Leary-207, 10-Kale Drake-203.
USAC NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-C.J. Leary-32, 2-Kale Drake-28, 3-Jadon Rogers-26, 4-Briggs Danner-15, 5-Robert Ballou-11, 6-Chase Stockon-10, 7-Justin Grant-9, 8-Jake Swanson-9, 9-Ricky Lewis-9, 10-Kevin Thomas Jr.-8.
HUGHES RACING / INDIANA MAFIA / FLAMINGO SANDY WINTER DIRT GAMES XVI SPRINT CAR PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-C.J. Leary-38, 2-Jadon Rogers-37, 3-Kale Drake-30, 4-Briggs Danner-25, 5-Robert Ballou-22, 6-Ricky Lewis-20, 7-Kyle Cummins-19, 8-Justin Grant-18, 9-Chase Stockon-17, 10-Daison Pursley-16.
NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACES: February 14-15, 2025 – Ocala Speedway – Ocala, Florida – Winter Dirt Games XVI – 3/8-Mile Dirt Track
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Kyle Cummins (14.715)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Justin Grant (13.911)
Rod End Supply First Heat Winner: Joey Amantea
Car IQ Second Heat Winner: Carson Garrett
K1 RaceGear Third Heat Winner: Kobe Simpson
Hoosier Tire Fourth Heat Winner: Stevie Sussex
Elliott’s Custom Trailers & Carts Semi Winner: Gunnar Setser
Hard Charger: Briggs Danner (24th to 11th)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night: Gunnar Setser
