Great racing wraps up Eldora's season

ROSSBURG - Tyler Courtney continued his mastery of Eldora Speedway on Saturday night by capturing the United States Auto Club (USAC) Midget and Sprint Car feature events during the Four Crown Nationals in the season finale for the track. He was joined in victory lane by Aaron Reutzel and Brady Bacon, who won the All Star winged feature and the USAC Silver Crown events respectively.

Courtney, of Indianapolis, was the fastest qualifier for both the USAC Midget and USAC Sprint Car events and won both of the events for the second consecutive year. The Sprint Car win was his fourth consecutive at Eldora, becoming the first driver in the long USAC history at Eldora to win four consecutive events at the high-banked, half-mile oval.

"It's pretty incredible. You've got guys like Jack Hewitt, Rich Vogler, and all those guys that have run here. For somebody to never win four consecutive USAC National Sprint Car Races here is incredible," said Courtney. "Just to be compared to those guys and be able to go for four in a row is pretty incredible and now we get to put our name in the history books and hopefully come back in the spring for five in a row."

The Midget event was the first feature to take the green flag and it was a thriller. Courtney, Tanner Carrick and Logan Seavey swapped the lead back and forth throughout the 25-lap event, before Courtney took control for good on lap 23.

"I just tried to time my moves right, but Tanner kept coming back," Courtney explained. "He's turning into one heck of a driver. That one was a lot harder than I was hoping for, but this is Eldora and that's what this place is all about."

Carrick held on to finish runner-up, but was disappointed to narrowly miss out on his first Eldora victory.

"I ran that whole race as hard as I could," Carrick said. "It's just kind of a bummer. I got into lapped traffic there and Tyler squeezed me down into a lapped car and I lost all my momentum and my shot at getting back around him. There weren't enough laps to get my speed back up and going. This is a big momentum place, and once you're out front, you just keep going and you're good. It kind of sucks. I led a lot of laps there and came out with a second. Maybe next year."

Seavey held on to finish third while Rico Abreu and Kevin Thomas Jr. rounded out the top five. Completing the top 10 were Chris Windom, Justin Grant, Zeb Wise, Tucker Klassmeyer and Tanner Thorson.

Thomas Jr. jumped to the lead in the USAC Sprint Car event and appeared to have a car capable of ending Courtney's winning streak. On lap 18, Thomas Jr. got high in turn four and smacked the outside wall, slowing his momentum. Courtney was running in second-place at the time erased a 10-car length deficit and passed Thomas Jr. on the following lap and never looked back to claim his fifth career Four Crown win.

"This is cool. I think K.T. was definitely the car to beat there. He just got sucked up in the wall off of four and he was fast the whole race, so it was going to be tough to get around him because it was tough to pass guys," Courtney said. "Hats off to my entire Clauson/Marshall/Newman team. We kind of struggled the first half of the season. We've kind of turned it on here the past few weeks to put a little pressure on C.J. (Leary). I hate to see what happened to him tonight."

Leary, who entered as the point's leader was attempting to pass Thomas Jr. for third-place late in the event, when he spun and crashed in turn two. Leary was scored 22nd at the finish and saw his point's lead over Courtney shrink to 64 points.

Windom finished second ahead of Grant, Thomas Jr. and Bacon. Completing the top 10 were Dallas Hewitt, Matt Westfall, Chase Stockon, Isaac Chapple and Nick Bilbee.

Reutzel, of Clute, Texas, put an exclamation point on his 2019 season by wrapping up his second consecutive Ollie's All-Star Circuit of Champions season championship with his second consecutive win in the Four Crown Nationals at Eldora.

Reutzel passed leader Cory Eliason on lap 16 after the leader's advantage was wiped out by a caution flag on lap 15. After using the high groove for much of the 25-lap chase, Reutzel moved to the bottom of turns three and four to make the pass for the lead, and then cruised to his third career win at Eldora.

What can you say about this team?" said Reutzel, who finished second to Logan Schuchart in Friday's rain-delayed World of Outlaw main event. "Last night (the track) was rough and heavy, and we were good. I felt like we should have come away with a win last night. Tonight, dead slick and we're good. That's just a true statement to this team that we just work hard and try to be good on anything. We didn't do it from the front row because there have been a lot of naysayers in the last month that we've been only winning off the front row and we drew the worst pill you can draw tonight. We'll give them something else to talk about now. Absolute dream season, what a great way to cap it off."

Eliason finished second, while Gio Scelzi, 17-year old Buddy Kofoid and Dale Blaney completed the top five. Rounding out the top 10 were Greg Wilson, Cale Conley, Chad Kemenah, Abreu and James McFadden.

Bacon capped the night with his first career Silver Crown win at Eldora. He chased Thomas Jr. for the first 40 laps of the 50-lap chase and then when Thomas Jr. again got into the outside wall in turn four, Bacon pounced on his opportunity and moved around Thomas and then cruised to the win.

"We kind of struggled in everything else so it was good to get a win here," said Bacon about his victory and the previous races throughout the weekend at Eldora. "Obviously it's good to get an owner's championship for these Klatt Enterprises and everybody. We worked hard to make huge improvements over last year and we won two races this year and we were in the hunt every time we ran on the dirt and they were in the hunt every time they ran the pavement."

Thomas Jr. finished second and left Eldora wondering what it would take to get his first career win at speedway.

"We had a good chance of winning the sprint car race and plugged it in the fence and broke the front end. Luckily, we finished fourth there and then I did it again," Thomas Jr. said. "I don't ever run the fence so I'm glad I was at least up there to plug it in the fence. It was a long day, but it was a fun day. I think we got a fourth, a fourth, and a second. For someone that isn't very good here I'll take it."

Rounding out the top 10 in the Silver Crown event were Grant, series champion Kody Swanson, Shane Cottle, Windom, Westfall, Leary, Matt Goodnight and Eric Gordon.