KNOXVILLE, IOWA – Brady Bacon has been as unstoppable as anyone in a non-wing sprint car at Knoxville Raceway over the years, but he came up a lap short on Saturday night.
Instead, it was Jake Swanson climbing on top of his car in jubilation in victory lane, winning a swift $12,000 check for his team owner Michael Bourkhart as well as a victory lane kiss to celebrate the big race win.
“Brady was checked out,” Swanson said. “It felt like he had a straightaway on me. I knew I was faster than him and I at first, I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m gonna get him,’ and then all of the sudden, the closing rate became really fast there in the last few laps.”
Swanson timed the move perfectly, sliding by Bacon on the final corner of the 30-lap, A-Main race at Knoxville.
Swanson credits finding the rubbered down part of the race track before other drivers to what put him in position to win.
“I got a lot of those guys because I was down there in (the rubber),” Swanson said. “I was trying not to show anybody, because they were all like yawed out sideways. And, I could run up next to them, but I didn’t want to run up next to them. I just waited until I could beat them into the corner and let it land in the rubber. I just didn’t want to show them where the rubber was, because (if they see that) they just move down.”
The Team AZ No. 21 driver thrived off of the track, moving into second and putting himself in position to come away with the victory.
That’s where the charge to the front started.
“It goes back,” Swanson said of what happened to produce the win. “It’s hard to say it was the last lap, because it goes back to the yellow. When we got the yellow, I was like ‘this place is black and this could totally change the complexity of the race.’ I didn’t expect it to take the rubber that hard and that quick. I was the first one to the rubber.”
Swanson’s win moves him into third in the USAC Non-Wing Sprint Car Series point standings, where he sits just 16 points behind the new leader in Brady Bacon.
It also extended his points lead in the Bubby Jones Master of Goin’ Faster presented by Spire Motorsports standings, where he leads Mitchel Moles by 16.
The series will return to the track on June 13 for the first race of the 16th annual USAC Eastern Storm swing that begins at Grandview Speedway for the Jesse Hockett Classic. As always, all of the USAC action from the beginning of the year to the end, can be seen live on FloRacing.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Brady Bacon-676, 2-Kyle Cummins-665, 3-Jake Swanson-660, 4-C.J. Leary-658, 5-Emerson Axsom-634, 6-Justin Grant-612, 7-Mitchel Moles-579, 8-Chase Stockon-534, 9-Matt Westfall-489, 10-Kevin Thomas Jr.-478.
BUBBY JONES MASTER OF GOIN’ FASTER PRESENTED BY SPIRE SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT POINTS: 1-Jake Swanson-234, 2-Mitchel Moles-218, 3-C.J. Leary-211, 4-Brady Bacon-187, 5-Kyle Cummins-187, 6-Emerson Axsom-184, 7-Matt Westfall-152, 8-Chase Stockon-149, 9-Max Adams-144, 10-Carson Garrett-142.
OVERALL PROSOURCE PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Daison Pursley-50, 2-Chase Stockon-43, 3-Justin Grant-37, 4-Logan Seavey-37, 5-Matt Westfall-35, 6-Carson Garrett-31, 7-Brady Bacon-29, 8-C.J. Leary-27, 9-Thomas Meseraull-26, 10-Jake Swanson-23.
