6/2/2025
Avanti's Corn Belt Clash - Friday Night May 30th
The last time the Moose92 set a wheel on the black gumbo type track @ Knoxville was 1999 with Rusty McClure behind the wheel. But even before that, 1990, 1991 & 1992, Tom & Laurie were at the Nationals participating in The Knoxville Nationals Trade Show, with her ever popular custom hand painted magnets, Christmas ornaments and 14k jewelry. LAD ARTS. Seems like a more then forever ago... and here we are back with the 92 car competing with the best of the best, the USAC National Sprint Cars. Wow, has time flown, time to relish the past and set our eyes on making many more memorable moments.
Keizer Wheels has been a supporter of Moose92 pretty much since day 1, and after their operation was devastated by a massive fire, they dug deep, rebuilt and opened a top notch facility down the road a piece. From golf cart, mule, mini sprint, sprint car, drag, and even tractor pull wheels, they've got it all .. and tom had on his bucket list to visit Wade's new shop. SO, a 4 hour detour to Orange CIty Iowa was where the rig headed Wednesday prior to heading to Knoxville for the Avaniti Corn Belt Clash. Talk about an impressive facility, Wade and his group have outdone themselves. It was fasinating seeing these machines turn blocks of aluminum into beautiful wheels. ( whoever thought, I"d say a wheel was something beautiful?? ) Thanks to everyone at Keizer Wheels who welcomed us.
Back on the road heading to Knoxville Thursday morning, spending some time in The Hall Of Fame Museum A section dedicated to Manzanita Speedway brought back images of many a race with SCRA, CRA in years past, a chance to once again do some reflecting on so many good times. Racing is a way of life for sure, but it's the people you meet along the way and hold the most special parts of your heart. Catching up with a few of them after 20 plus years .. Kathy & Ed Harkema ( kathy at that time was President of The Knoxville Chamber Of Commerce and was instrumental in finding people who visited Knoxville for the Nationals places to stay for the week. It was a great program as residents of Knoxville and nearby cities opened their homes ... as hotels in the area were very few . Josh, another face from the past. had lived in Cali for awhile and then about 16 years ago moved back to his hometown of Carlisle Iowa. Not only was the weekend jam packed with racing, it was also the weekend for the Induction into The Knoxville Hall of Fame. Damion Gardener, from our Cali years was one being honored for this amazing years of racing, and with him came many many Cali faces that we hadn't seen since we moved to Indiana. So, for sure, for us it was a grand weekend of racing, but more so, reconnecting with so many.
Pulling into the track on Friday gave me goosebumps for sure, as Knoxville is deemed as The Racing Capital ... and the entire city is a buzz with "racing fever". 31 non wing 410 USAC National Cars filled the pits along with ( i think they said ) 50 , 360 wing cars. Needless to say the pits was a busy place.
Pulling an early pill Chase was sitting 5th with a big bucket full of cars to go -- going out early can be a dream, but it can also be a nightmare as the track either gets better, or starts to go away. Lucky for Chase & Moose 92 , Chase held on to qualify 6th.
From here : there's the excerpts from Richie Murray, USAC's MediaMan:
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.
: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.
" The Crew "
: Steve ( Crew Cheif ) & his wife Shari, Tom ... ( that's it folks, just basically Steve, Tom & Chase )
None of this could even be possible without: the support of:
Marketing Partners:
#Brown Brothers Excavating
#Dewig Meats
#Engler Machine & Tool
Phil & Eileen King
#Lucas Oil Centers
#S&C Fabrication
#TedBrownsQualityAutoBody
With Product Courtesy's:
#CWR
#DRC
#Eibach
#FKK Shocks by Hummel
#Keizer Wheels
#Kenny's Components
#Krietz
#RodEndSupply
#Saldana
Submitted By: laurie sertich
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