Grandview Eastern Midget Week Preview
Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania (July 29, 2020)………Four past USAC National champions – Christopher Bell, Tanner Thorson, Chris Windom and Tyler Courtney, among several other talented competitors, are expected to compete at Grandview Speedway on Tuesday, August 4, when the USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship makes the trip to 1/3-mile dirt oval in Bechtelsville, Pa. for the kickoff to the five-race in five-night series known as Eastern Midget Week.
It took 102 starts for Chris Windom to reach USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget victory lane for the first time in his career in June of 2019. It took just six more for the Canton, Illinois native to get there for the second time in the 2019 Eastern Midget Week opener at Grandview Speedway.
Since that first series win over a year ago, the current USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget point leader has won four more times in 34 starts, including three in 2020 in Ocala, Fla., Putnamville, Ind. and Fairbury, Neb.
In last year’s Grandview tilt, Windom fought Tyler Courtney for the win on the final lap, losing the lead via a Courtney slider in turn one, then outdueled him into turn three to retake the position before sealing the deal to win in the series’ first visit to the 1/3-mile dirt oval in three decades.
Courtney, last year’s Grandview runner-up finisher, heat race winner and reigning USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget driving champion, is second in the series standings behind Windom following a recent surge in the Great Plains tour in mid-July following a recent victory at Jefferson County Speedway in Fairbury, Neb. The 2018 USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car champ will be teamed with Cole Bodine (Rossville, Ind.) for Clauson-Marshall Racing.
Minden, Nevada’s Tanner Thorson, the 2016 series champion, was last year’s Grandview hard charger, starting 15th and finishing 4th and was also a heat race winner. He leads all drivers in the series with 138 laps led throughout the 2020 season. He leads all series regulars with four feature scores in Ocala, Du Quoin, Ill., Kokomo, Ind. and Red Dirt Raceway in Meeker, Okla.
Tanner Carrick, the 2019 USAC National Most Improved Driver from Lincoln, Calif., moved up to a 3rd place finish at Grandview after starting 7th on the grid. The 2017 USAC National Midget Rookie of the year and one-time feature winner is 6th in the standings coming in.
Kevin Thomas Jr. will be wheeling a midget for Pennsylvania’s Heffner Racing throughout Eastern Midget Week. Thomas (Cullman, Ala.) holds the one-lap USAC National Sprint Car track record at Grandview, set in 2012. He finished 3rd in last year’s midget feature event at Grandview.
No Pennsylvania driver has won a USAC National Midget feature since Royersford’s Steve Buckwalter in 2010. Buckwalter, the 2010 ARDC Midget champ, won that year during the Indiana Midget Week round at Gas City and will join the Grandview field on Tuesday after finishing 18th there a year ago.
Fellow Pennsylvanian Andrew Layser (Collegeville, Pa.) finished 13th at Grandview in 2019 during his USAC National Midget Rookie of the Year campaign and is 9th in the standings this year as a Tucker-Boat Motorsports teammate to 2019 Grandview winner Windom.
Reading, Pennsylvania’s Steven Drevicki is a perennial winner on the USAC Rapid Tire East Coast Sprint Car circuit, winning the last two year’s titles, and has already tallied two victories this season and is the leader once again in the standings. He is equally successful in the Midgets as well, capturing ARDC championships in both 2014 and 2015. The recent non-sanctioned midget winner at Abbottstown, Pa.’s Lincoln Speedway, finished 17th with the USAC Midgets at Grandview in 2019.
Victor, New York’s Kevin Woody Jr., an Army combat veteran and government bodyguard, has been a regular of Eastern Midget Week over the past couple of summers and will be behind the wheel for the event once again this year beginning at Grandview as a teammate to Steve Buckwalter. Woody finished 19th in 2019 at Grandview.
Among the competition expected are 2013 USAC National Midget champion and NASCAR Cup Series regular Christopher Bell (Norman, Okla.), who’ll be teamed up with Windom, Layser and Kokomo/Placerville USAC Midget track record holder, Dillon Welch (Carmel, Ind.).
Three drivers from the Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports stable are also expected to make their Grandview Midget debuts, including top series Rookie, Penngrove, California’s Buddy Kofoid (3rd in points), Bixby, Oklahoma’s Cannon McIntosh (5th in points) and Locust Grove, Oklahoma’s Daison Pursley (7th in points).
2017 Lincoln Speedway Eastern Storm winner Thomas Meseraull (San Jose, Calif.) has victory experience in the state of Pennsylvania with the USAC Sprint Cars and will be paired with 2018 Gas City, Ind. sprint car track champion and RMS teammate Clinton Boyles (Greenwood, Mo.) for Grandview.
Plus, mix in 2019 HARF Driver of the Year, Kyle Cummins (Princeton, Ind.), who is a major star in Sprint Cars in the state of Indiana and a 5th place USAC Midget finisher in his most recent series start in June at Kokomo.
Adam Pierson (East Corinth, Vt.) and Jeff Champagne (Westfield, Mass.) have each been standouts in USAC’s DMA Midget division which finds its home at Bear Ridge Speedway in Bradford, Vt. Pierson is a 33-time winner with the series (most all-time) and a three-time champ in 2014-15-16 who tied Billy Boat for the longest win streak in USAC racing history at 11 straight in 2016. Champagne, meanwhile, is four-time winner with the series.
Both coasts are well represented with Ethan Mitchell (Mooresville, N.C.) riding up the east coast to take on Eastern Midget Week while Chase Johnson (Penngrove, Calif.) has made the trip out for Indiana Sprint Week and will continue moving eastward for Grandview. Robert Dalby (Anaheim, Calif.) has relocated to Indiana for the 2020 season and is set to face his first Eastern Midget Week appearance.
USAC National Midget racing has occurred only three times at Grandview. The debut in 1988 was won by Rich Vogler while the follow up in 1989 was captured by Russ Gamester. Both drivers also won the USAC National Midget championship in those same years. Chris Windom won the series’ return to Grandview in 2019.
Pits open at 2:30pm ET on raceday, Tuesday, August 4, at Grandview. The front gates open at 5pm with the drivers meeting at 6pm and midgets on track at 6:20pm.
Adult admission tickets are $28, children age 6 to 11 are $10 and children age 5 and under will be admitted free. The pit fee is $40 and a license is not required. Advance tickets are available by calling (443) 513-4456. Advance ticket holders may enter the grandstands early at 4:30pm.
The Grandview event will be aired live on FloRacing at https://bit.ly/3frPoW6.
USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Chris Windom-1,035, 2-Tyler Courtney-928, 3-Buddy Kofoid-919, 4-Tanner Thorson-906, 5-Cannon McIntosh-809, 6-Tanner Carrick-713, 7-Daison Pursley-677, 8-Cole Bodine-629, 9-Andrew Layser-598, 10-Justin Grant-489.
PAST USAC NATIONAL MIDGET WINNERS AT GRANDVIEW SPEEDWAY: 1988-Rich Vogler, 1989-Russ Gamester, 2019-Chris Windom.
Sources: Richie Murray – USAC Media
2019 Grandview Speedway USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget winner,
Chris Windom (Canton, Ill.)
(Danny Clum Photo)