Indianapolis, Indiana.......Jerry Coons, Jr. of Tucson, Arizona counted last year's win in the "Hoosier Hundred" at the Indiana State Fairgrounds as one of the biggest of his career. He came back on Friday night to back it up with his second-straight victory in the 100-mile event aboard the RW Motorsports - Joe Gibbs Driven Racing Oil #27 Beast/Wallace Toyota.
"Winning this race just once and joining that list of names, that was a huge deal in itself. To come back and join the group of guys who have won it more than once, and won it back-to-back, it's just amazing," Coons said of his romp that accounted for 87 laps led.
Tracy Hines jumped from the front row to lead at the start, but a cluster of cautions slowed the pace and set up multiple double-file restarts. Those proved pivotal, as Coons used a restart on lap 14 to leap past Hines and take a lead he would never relinquish.
Hines, who had trouble in particular on restarts, lost a few positions as Bud Kaeding became the sole threat to Coons' domination. Kaeding kept pace throughout much of the race, even as they left the rest of the field far behind, but a small mistake late in the race cost the Campbell, California driver any chance at the win.
"We hung right with him there a good part of the race, and then I hit the fence down on the inside of turn-four and shot myself up the track. I lost a lot of ground there and picked up a vibration, so just under-drove it from there trying to hang on. I'm not sure we had a better car than him, but we definitely have made progress, especially on restarts. It's gonna be a learning curve year, but I'm glad we're on the front end of it," Kaeding said of his pursuit of a fourth series championship aboard the BK Motorsports - Alviso Rock #29 DRC/Speedway Mopar.
Back-to-back and defending series champion Levi Jones had a huge hill to climb, but after qualifying 14th, the Olney, Illinois driver climbed to a podium finish aboard the Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing - Chevrolet Performance #10 Maxim/Kistler.
"We're just trying to figure everything out with the fuel and everything. We thought we had a pretty good handle on everything, but obviously we were terrible early. We got it to where it restarted pretty well and didn't get hot, but I think we hurt it a little at the beginning of the night. To get that far, we just had to hit some restarts and put ourselves in a decent position, and we got a good finish out of it," Jones said.
Bobby East followed his teammate home to finish fourth aboard the Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing - Chevrolet Performance #22 Maxim/Kistler. Kody Swanson rounded out the top-five in the Jet Star - Toyota #19 Beast/Claxton.
TRAXXAS USAC SILVER CROWN RACE RESULTS: May 25, 2012 - Indianapolis, Indiana - Indiana State Fairgrounds - 59th Running of "Hoosier Hundred"
QUALIFYING: 1. Bryan Clauson, 17, RW/Curb-Agajanian-34.768; 2. Bud Kaeding, 29, BK-34.847; 3. Jerry Coons, Jr., 27, RW-34.942; 4. Tracy Hines, 16, Lightfoot-35.025; 5. Kody Swanson, 19, Six-R-35.126; 6. Dave Darland, 56, Foxco-35.397; 7. Shane Hollingsworth, 20, Nolen-35.407; 8. Bobby East, 22, Stewart/Curb-Agajanian-35.451; 9. Shane Cockrum, 114, Hardy-35.502; 10. A.J. Fike, 3, RFMS-35.518; 11. Brian Tyler, 21, Six-R-35.565; 12. Chris Urish, 77, Urish-35.697; 13. Zach Daum, 50, Daum-35.789; 14. Levi Jones, 10, Stewart/Curb-Agajanian-36.033; 15. Tanner Swanson, 23, Six-R-36.258; 16. Justin Grant, 63, DePalma-36.453; 17. Steve Adams, 500, Adams-36.978; 18. Jimmy Kite, 25, Sachs-38.360; 19. Todd Kane, 78, Kane-NT; 20. Aaron Pierce, 26, Pierce-NT; 21. Robert Ballou, 43, Nix-NT; 22. Russ Gamester, 51, Gamester-NT (time of 35.884 disallowed).
FEATURE: (100 laps) 1. Jerry Coons, Jr., 2. Bud Kaeding, 3. Levi Jones, 4. Bobby East, 5. Kody Swanson, 6. Tracy Hines, 7. Bryan Clauson, 8. Tanner Swanson, 9. Zach Daum, 10. Shane Hollingsworth, 11. Chris Urish, 12. Todd Kane, 13. Justin Grant, 14. Brian Tyler, 15. Steve Adams, 16. Jimmy Kite, 17. Russ Gamester, 18. Dave Darland, 19. Shane Cockrum, 20. A.J. Fike.
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-13 Hines, Laps 14-100 Coons.
NEW TRAXXAS SILVER CROWN POINTS: 1-Kaeding-111; 2-K.Swanson-108; 3-Jones-93; 4-T.Swanson-90; 5-Hines-90; 6-Coons-88-; 7-East-82; 8-Santos-63; 9-Daum-63; 10-Gamester-52.
- Admin Account on May 28, 2012
- Article Date: 5/25/2012