Knoxville, Iowa (May 30, 2025)………The winningest USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship driver in the history of Iowa’s Knoxville Raceway did it yet again on Friday during the opening night of the Avanti Windows & Doors Corn Belt Clash.
In doing so, Brady Bacon placed himself squarely on the cusp of becoming the winningest USAC National Sprint Car driver of all-time – Knoxville and every other track included.
The Broken Arrow, Oklahoma native swiftly maneuvered by racelong leader Chase Stockon with five laps remaining to earn his fifth career USAC National Sprint Car feature victory at Knoxville’s 1/2-mile dirt oval after previously scoring in 2011, twice in 2019 and again in 2020.
With all of Brady Bacon’s USAC National Sprint Car wins tallied up after Friday’s triumph, his career win total with the series stands at 61, just one behind Dave Darland’s all-time leading total of 62. A golden opportunity now lies ahead for Bacon to tie Darland’s mark on Saturday at Knoxville with a shot at $15,000-to-win.
Aside from the record, Knoxville has proven to be Bacon’s playground over the years. In fact, Friday night’s landing spot was his eighth consecutive top-two result in USAC National Sprint Car competition at Knoxville dating back to 2019, and his 12th podium in 13 career series starts at the track.
Needless to say, records are at the forefront of the conversation surrounding Bacon. However, in his personal viewpoint, by winning races, any record that comes his way will naturally take care of itself.
“We always come into Knoxville with a lot of confidence with one goal in mind and that’s to win the race,” Bacon stated. “We’re usually right there or maybe one or two spots away from it.”
Bacon started fifth on the grid in his Chris Dyson Racing/Concord American Flagpole – Macri Concrete/Triple X/Rider Chevy. Pole sitter Chase Stockon had the early upper hand as he patrolled the bottom to lead the high-riding Bacon by a car length at the stripe to complete lap one of 25.
As the front two duked it out, Briggs Danner entered the scene and briefly surged ahead of Bacon on lap five, but time and time again, Bacon dug deep to keep Danner at bay for the time being.
The Bacon/Danner duel for second was good news for Stockon who increased his lead to three seconds with 10 laps down and lapped traffic beckoning. That took Stockon off his comfy line around the bottom and forced him to run the top in order to work around the back end of the field. This, in turn, allowed Bacon and Danner to clamp down on Stockon, whose lead had been slashed to a mere half-second in a moment’s notice.
On lap 17, Danner got rolling on the top and stormed around the outside of Bacon in turn two to occupy the second position. A lap later, Danner pulled even to the outside of Stockon in turn two. But just as soon as one may have figured Danner’s sudden surge was going to lift him to the front, Stockon successfully thwarted Danner’s attack while Bacon simultaneously swapped paths and went low on the 19th lap to retake second from Danner.
With the top-three running nose-to-tail under a blanket, Bacon made his winning move on lap 21 when he chased Stockon on the high side of turn two, then stalked him halfway down the back straight before diving low entering turn three and sliding up in front to take the top spot once and for all and for good.
“We were just better on the top than (Stockon) was,” Bacon explained. “The bottom was really good in one and two and he was a little better than us down there to start the race. It just got so important to find the rhythm and gain momentum. He started getting kind of jammed up getting up to lapped cars, then I was just trying to go where he wasn’t.”
Danner took the high road and followed suit into second on lap 22 after Stockon went back to the bottom and became stifled behind the lapped car of Stevie Sussex in turns one and two. By then, Bacon’s lead stood at nearly a full second. That is, until a dislodged wheel cover laying on the front straightway necessitated the one and only yellow flag of the feature on the final lap. Yet it wasn’t enough to throw Bacon off his game.
“The bottom went away in one and two,” Bacon revealed. “So, I figured that, if I didn’t make the same mistake I made here and let somebody slide me on the restart, I’d be fine. You just had to get up there and get your mile an hour going and don’t make any mistakes. The cushion wasn’t quite as big as it normally is but it could still bite you and it didn’t have quite as much grip to keep you going if you did mess up.”
The key factor is that Bacon did not stumble over the course of the final two laps, crossing the line as the victor for the third time during the 2025 USAC National Sprint Car season 1.284 seconds ahead of runner-up Briggs Danner with Chase Stockon third, Robert Ballou fourth and Justin Grant rounding out the top-five.
“It was kind of like a chess match,” Bacon explained. “This place is so super technical. If you mess up, you’ll pay dearly. I had a really good car, but I just had to make the right moves. I made a couple mistakes but was able to get in the right place when it mattered and I felt like, once I was out front, I had a car good enough to hold everybody off.”
As for Danner and the Hogue Racing Enterprises team, what a way to make a first impression at Knoxville. In his first ever visit to the track, Danner raced to a runner-up finish utilizing a late move to glide his way into second for his best USAC National Sprint Car result of the year so far. That proved to be the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.
It was a run to be proud of for Chase Stockon and car owners Tom and Laurie Sertich. Stockon led a race-high 20 laps en route to earning a career best third, the best finish of his career in 10 starts at the track. For the Sertich owned team, it had been 26 years since their most recent Knoxville appearance during the 1999 Non-Wing World Championship with driver Rusty McClure.
Kale Drake's 15th to 6th run at Knoxville continued his incredible theme of 2025. It was the fifth time in 12 USAC National Sprint Car starts this season that he's earned Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors.
Meanwhile, C.J. Leary reset the USAC National Sprint Car track record at Knoxville during Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying with a time of 18.442 seconds, breaking the former mark of 18.548 set by Kevin Thomas Jr. in 2017. For Leary, it was his 56th career USAC National Sprint Car quick time, which ranks fourth all-time and only nine behind all-time leader Tom Bigelow (65).
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: May 30, 2025 – Knoxville Raceway – Knoxville, Iowa – 1/2-Mile Dirt Track – Avanti Windows & Doors Corn Belt Clash
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. C.J. Leary, 21AZ, Team AZ/Curb-Agajanian-18.442 (New Track Record); 2. Brady Bacon, 20, Dyson-18.523; 3. R.J. Johnson, 33p, Petty-18.719; 4. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-18.804; 5. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-18.850; 6. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-18.854; 7. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming/Swanson-18.918; 8. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-18.949; 9. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-18.966; 10. Ryan Bernal, 17x, Dunkel-19.005; 11. Jadon Rogers, 66, Amati-19.025; 12. A.J. Johnson, 93, Germar-19.041; 13. Kale Drake 2B, 2B Racing-19.124; 14. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-19.213; 15. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-19.293; 16. Logan Calderwood, 6, Ford-19.299; 17. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-19.311; 18. Kobe Simpson, 21K, Simpson-19.438; 19. Wyatt Burks, 11w, Burks-19.469; 20. Carson Garrett, 15, BGE-19.489; 21. Stevie Sussex, 2, Yeley-19.609; 22. Charles Davis Jr., 47, Davis-19.695; 23. Kayla Roell, 4K, Roell-19.758; 24. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-19.845; 25. Gunnar Setser, 5G, KO-19.854; 26. Braydon Cromwell, 4x, Boyd-19.866; 27. Glen Saville, 75, Grasmere-20.228; 28. Ben Woods, 11B, B & R-20.372; 29. Tyler Graves, T4, Graves-20.781; 30. Vinny Ward, 82, Ward-21.036; 31. Nick Marts, N3, Marts-23.286.
CAR IQ FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Justin Grant, 2. Kale Drake, 3. C.J. Leary, 4. Briggs Danner, 5. Logan Seavey, 6. Gunnar Setser, 7. Stevie Sussex, 8. Tyler Graves. 2:42.677
K1 RACEGEAR SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Robert Ballou, 2. Brady Bacon, 3. Ryan Bernal, 4. Chase Stockon, 5. Charles Davis Jr., 6. Kobe Simpson, 7. Braydon Cromwell, 8. Vinny Ward. 2:44.083
USAC GEAR THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kyle Cummins, 2. Jake Swanson, 3. R.J. Johnson, 4. Jadon Rogers, 5. Glen Saville, 6. Wyatt Burks, 7. Kayla Roell. NT
COOK OUT FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Carson Garrett, 2. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3. Mitchel Moles, 4. Hayden Reinbold, 5. Logan Calderwood, 6. A.J. Johnson, 7. Ben Woods. 2:48.932
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (10 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Wyatt Burks, 2. Stevie Sussex, 3. Gunnar Setser, 4. Kobe Simpson, 5. Braydon Cromwell, 6. Tyler Graves, 7. Ben Woods, 8. Kayla Roell, 9. Vinny Ward, 10. A.J. Johnson. NT
FEATURE: (25 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Brady Bacon (5), 2. Briggs Danner (2), 3. Chase Stockon (1), 4. Robert Ballou (8), 5. Justin Grant (7), 6. Kale Drake (15), 7. Kevin Thomas Jr. (3), 8. Kyle Cummins (9), 9. Ryan Bernal (13), 10. Jake Swanson (11), 11. C.J. Leary (6), 12. R.J. Johnson (4), 13. Mitchel Moles (12), 14. Logan Seavey (17), 15. Wyatt Burks (19), 16. Carson Garrett (10), 17. Gunnar Setser (23), 18. Stevie Sussex (20), 19. Charles Davis Jr. (21), 20. Kobe Simpson (18), 21. Hayden Reinbold (22), 22. Glen Saville (24), 23. Logan Calderwood (16), 24. Jadon Rogers (14). NT
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-20 Chase Stockon, Laps 21-25 Brady Bacon.
**Kayla Roell flipped during the third heat.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Kyle Cummins-875, 2-Justin Grant-818, 3-Mitchel Moles-676, 4-Robert Ballou-672, 5-Logan Seavey-656, 6-Kale Drake-636, 7-Briggs Danner-626, 8-Jake Swanson-622, 9-C.J. Leary-621, 10-Kevin Thomas Jr.-568.
PARALLAX GROUP USAC NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-112, 2-C.J. Leary-54, 3-Briggs Danner-41, 4-Robert Ballou-39, 5-Chase Stockon-37, 6-Gunnar Setser-34, 7-Justin Grant-32, 8-Jadon Rogers-30, 9-Kyle Cummins-24, 10-Kyle Jones-22.
CORN BELT CLASH PARALLAX GROUP PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-10, 2-Brady Bacon-8, 3-Gunnar Setser-8, 4-Robert Ballou-6, 5-Wyatt Burks-6, 6-Justin Grant-5, 7-Ryan Bernal-5, 8-Stevie Sussex-5, 9-Kevin Thomas Jr.-4, 10-Jake Swanson-4.
NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: May 31, 2025 – Knoxville Raceway – Knoxville, Iowa – 1/2-Mile Dirt Track – Avanti Windows & Doors Corn Belt Clash
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Justin Grant (18.754)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: C.J. Leary (18.442)
Car IQ First Heat Winner: Justin Grant
K1 RaceGear Second Heat Winner: Robert Ballou
Hoosier Tire Third Heat Winner: Kyle Cummins
Cook Out Fourth Heat Winner: Carson Garrett
Elliott’s Custom Trailers & Carts Semi Winner: Wyatt Burks
Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Kale Drake (15th to 6th)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night: Briggs Danner
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