HINES LANDS LIGHTFOOT’S FIRST TRAXXAS SILVER CROWN WIN AT BELLEVILLE
Belleville, Kansas…….Tracy Hines of New Castle, Indiana is a former Traxxas Silver Crown Series champion, but his ninth career win in the series on Friday in the “Hustle on the High Banks” at the Belleville High Banks marked the first for his car owner Mark Lightfoot. The win came in dominant fashion, as he posted “Fast Time” before wiring the field in the 50-lapper.
Hines set out from the pole and beat Bobby East into the first turn. Two early cautions set up restarts where East and Robert Ballou battled for the second spot as Hines sped away up against the cushion.
A red flag on lap 24 for sixth-running Shane Hollingsworth offered Hines’ biggest challenge, as he restarted after with East and Ballou hot on his tail. But as the laps wound, Hines became stronger and stronger, opening up a comfortable margin.
With traffic in front of him over the final handful of circuits, his lead was carved down, but Hines was never seriously threatened en route to the 1.848-second win in the Lightfoot Racing #16 Beast/Stanton Mopar.
“It’s really cool to win for Mark Lightfoot. We put a deal together a couple years ago, and it’s turned into a great combination and a really good relationship. To finally get him a win is exciting. I’ve run second here a lot of times, so I’m happy to get a win here, whatever division it’s in. It was definitely treacherous to run a big heavy Silver Crown car here, with a full fuel load, without lifting up against a curb three feet from a little guardrail. My right-rear bled down under the red, so I had to ride it out after that, but once we got some air back I could attack it harder. We have three good tracks coming up for us in Silver Crown, so we’ll see what happens,” Hines said.
East pulled away from Ballou in the closing stages, keeping pace with new point-leader Hines as he finished second in the Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing – Chevy Performance #10 Maxim/Kistler.
“I think if we could have gotten out front at the beginning, we definitely were good enough to win. We could hang with him for stretches, but just couldn’t do much with him. We had some issues near the end of the race, so we’re happy to hang on for second,” East said.
Ballou rounded out the podium in the DePalma Motorsports – Radio Hospital #63 Maxim/Hampshire.
“I feel like I made some mistakes, because we had a really good car. It’s kinda disappointing to finish third, but I have to thank the DePalma family and Bob Hampshire, whose engines was really strong. We are starting up front and running well, but I’m still pretty inexperience in this stuff, and guys like Tracy seem to have Silver Crown pretty well figured out,” Ballou said.
Jerry Coons, Jr. came home fourth in the Rotondo Weirich – Curb Records #27 Beast/Wallace Toyota, while his teammate Chris Windom rounded out the top-five as the final car on the lead lap in the Rotondo Weirich – Curb Records #17 Beast/Wallace Toyota.
TRAXXAS USAC SILVER CROWN RACE RESULTS: August 2, 2013 – Belleville, Kansas – Belleville High Banks
QUALIFYING: 1. Tracy Hines, 16, Lightfoot-16.856; 2. Bobby East, 10, Stewart/Curb-Agajanian-16.949; 3. Jerry Coons, Jr., 27, RW/Curb-Agajanian-17.050; 4. Robert Ballou, 63, DePalma-17.068; 5. Shane Hollingsworth, 20, Nolen-17.211; 6. Chris Windom, 17, RW/Curb-Agajanian-17.274; 7. Kody Swanson, 25, Sachs-17.421; 8. Brian Tyler, 21, Team 6-R-17.502; 9. A.J. Fike, 3, RFMS-17.747; 10. Miranda Throckmorton, 33, Team 6-R-17.765; 11. Tim Barber, 28, Finkenbinder-17.983; 12. Dave Darland, 14, McQuinn-18.090; 13. Chris Urish, 77, Urish-18.672.
FEATURE: (50 laps) 1. Tracy Hines, 2. Bobby East, 3. Robert Ballou, 4. Jerry Coons, Jr., 5. Chris Windom, 6. A.J. Fike, 7. Kody Swanson, 8. Brian Tyler, 9. Dave Darland, 10. Tim Barber, 11. Shane Hollingsworth, 12. Miranda Throckmorton, 13. Chris Urish. NT
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**Hollingsworth flipped on lap 24 of the Feature.
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-50 Hines.
NEW TRAXXAS SILVER CROWN SERIES POINT STANDINGS: 1-Hines-247; 2-East-243; 3-Swanson-239; 4-Coons-235; 5-Windom-213; 6-Tyler-204; 7-Hollingsworth-182; 8-Fike-155; 9-David Byrne-127; 10-Bobby Santos-108.
NEXT TRAXXAS SILVER CROWN RACE: August 17 – Springfield, Illinois – Illinois State Fairgrounds – “Tony Bettenhausen 100”