He’s the oldest driver in the field, but as he said in victory lane, he was the fastest too.
Thomas Meseraull lead all 30 laps of Monday night’s USAC Midget feature event at Bubba Raceway Park, holding off a charging pair of defending champion Chris Windom and season opener winner Buddy Kofoid.
Upon stepping out of his car in victory lane, Meseraull made sure to thank the series for delaying Saturday night’s action to Monday after the event was postponed due to rain.
“Hats off to the track for running us,” Meseraull said on the FloRacing broadcast.” For letting us race on a Monday… I’m sure you weren’t making money on this, but I did. Thank you so much.”
The biggest move of Meseraull’s race that saw him lead all 30 laps of the event was the way he navigated through lapped traffic.
Both Windom and Kofoid were gaining on Meseraull’s No. 7X car, but weren’t able to make passes.
The most intense of the runs came with five laps to go, when a lapped car got loose and put some space in between Meseraull and Windom, who finished in second.
“The only shot I really had there was to get him in lapped traffic,” Windom said on the FloRacing broadcast. “We just didn’t make the right moves there. I felt like we were better than him, he just ran a smart race and didn’t make any mistakes. When the track’s that fast, that’s about all you can do there.”
The win is Meseraull’s third USAC Midget victory in his past seven starts, dating back to his first career win at Tri-State Speedway last season.
Meseraull’s RMS Racing teammate Justin Grant ran fourth and Keith Kunz Racing’s Daison Pursley rounded out the top five for the night.
On top of that though, before the main event got started, defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott earned his first career USAC Midget heat race beating out a talented field of drivers behind him.
He went on to finish only P14 in the feature race, but his CB Industries teammate in Windom said he was proud of the NASCAR star.
“It was cool to have Chase come out and race with us all weekend,” Windom said on the broadcast. “He did a great job. He wanted to learn as much as possible. It helps grow the sport when guys like that are interested. It sucks we didn’t come out with a win all weekend, but I’ll take second.”
The USAC Midget tour will take a bit of a hiatus before returning at Port City Raceway on April 9, over two months from Monday’s event.
USAC Midget Ocala Night 2 Results
1. Thomas Meseraull
2. Chris Windom
3. Buddy Kofoid
4. Justin Grant
5. Daison Pursley
6. Jason McDougal
7. Emerson Axsom
8. Tanner Thorson
9. Tanner Carrick
10. Kevin Thomas Jr.
11. Cannon McIntosh
12. Bryant Wiedemen
13. Logan Seavey
14. Chase Elliott
15. Chase Randall
16. Brenham Crouch
17. Kaylee Bryson
18. Taylor Reimer
19. Trey Gropp
20. Daniel Robinson
21. Kade Morton
22. Ethan Mitchell
