Brady Bacon crossed the start/finish line at Knoxville Raceway during the second annual Corn Belt Nationals in first place, two weeks ago.
It’s not an unfamiliar sight for Bacon, who won the first annual event in 2019 at Knoxville.
It was, however the second win for Bacon and the No. 69 team in three races after they went nearly four months without a trip to victory lane.
“We’ve been fast all year, we just had a string of bad luck there – things that were out of our control – so, we weren’t getting the finishes that our speed dictated,” Bacon said. “That’s how racing goes. This is kind of the time of the year to pick it up – when big money is on the line. We had to work a little harder for it this year, but we still had it done and it still paid $20 grand.”
That money is a big bonus to Bacon for the year as he tries to earn his second career championship in the USAC Sprint Cars.
It pays nearly as much as it does to win the seasonal points title.
“Our whole championship only pays $25 grand, so this race pays almost as much as the whole championship,” Bacon said. “It’s just a big a deal.”
Bacon is hoping that the victory pays dividends in the way of momentum.
He got off to a red hot start to the season winning each of the first two features at Bubba Raceway Park in February.
“It can make your year for sure,” Bacon said. “It definitely set a good tone for us last year and gave us a good boost. Hopefully it can do the same this year.”
Now, the series heads to Indiana for the annual Indiana Sprint Week, where Bacon will try to harness the momentum and make up some ground on the NOS Energy pair of Justin Grant and Chris Windom.
With how close these races are together – and we’ve seen it in the past – anything can happen and high or low swings can be a normality.
We’ll see how the veteran handles it.
The USAC Sprint Cars will start the seven-race slate on Friday Night at Gas City. As always the action can be seen on FloRacing.
2020 Indiana Sprint Week Schedule
Fri. July 24 – Gas City I-69 Speedway
Sat. July 25 – Kokomo Speedway
Sun. July 26 – Lawrenceburg Speedway
Wed. July 29 – Terre Haute Action Track
Thu. July 30 – Lincoln Park Speedway
Fri. July 31 – Bloomington Speedway
Sat. Aug. 01 – Tri-State Speedway
| USAC Non-Wing Sprint Cars Standings | ||||
| 1 | Justin Grant | 744 | -0 | |
| 2 | Chris Windom | 674 | -70 | |
| 3 | Brady Bacon | 668 | -76 | |
| 4 | C.J. Leary | 653 | -91 | |
| 5 | Chase Stockon | 645 | -99 | |
| 6 | Kevin Thomas Jr. | 623 | -121 | |
| 7 | Carson Short | 595 | -149 | |
| 8 | Dave Darland | 520 | -224 | |
| 9 | Brandon Mattox | 464 | -280 | |
| 10 | Mario Clouser | 373 | -371 | |
