COURTNEY CONQUERS INAUGURAL ILLINOIS MIDGET NATIONALS

COURTNEY CONQUERS INAUGURAL ILLINOIS MIDGET NATIONALS

Story By: Richie Murray/USAC Media

Photos By: Rich Forman/USAC Racing

Springfield, Illinois……Throughout the 2017 USAC Midget National Championship season, Tyler Courtney has proven himself as the streak-stopper.

After leading each of the previous three races at Kokomo, Ind., Macon, Ill. and Lincoln, Ill. for a total of 32 laps, Courtney had put together a string of three-straight third-place finishes. Though some would accept that as a solid night, the driver known as “Sunshine” felt that was a letdown and immediately sought to end that run of events with a performance he wouldn’t regret.

On Monday night’s Independence Day Eve meet at the Illinois State Fairgrounds Multi-Purpose Arena, Courtney did just that as, for the third time this season, he put an end to another driver’s two-race winning streak. This time, it was the previous two nights’ Macon and Lincoln winner Christopher Bell, who was cast in the role of Courtney’s pursuer instead of the alternative as Courtney captured victory number three on the season in the inaugural Adam Lopez “Illinois Midget Nationals.”

Earlier, Courtney had shut down similar three-peat attempts in Montpelier, Ind. as Brady Bacon aimed for three-in-a-row and at Bloomington, Ind. where Michael Pickens attempted to go for a third in as many nights.

From the get-go, it was a pair of Clauson-Marshall Racing cars conducting the orchestra as Shane Golobic and Courtney ran 1-2 from their front row starting positions. Courtney routinely poked the nose of his car to the outside of his teammate Golobic as he worked the outside groove – a place that was uninhabitable earlier in the evening prior to a track rework.

However, a smorgasbord of early cautions created a secession of starts and stops the prevented any driver from getting into a consistent rhythm. The tight corners and close-quarters racing made each pass challenging, but Courtney was game following a lap five restart.

Golobic worked the low line while Courtney occupied the middle-to-high road and, following multiple advances on the outside at the exit of turns two and four, Courtney surged ahead between turns three and four a lap later to become the maestro. Three laps later, Bell followed suit around the top past Golobic for second.

“I knew it was going to be a chess match between Shane and I to see who could get to the front and get space between them and the guy behind them,” Courtney anticipated. “I was able to find the top first and, luckily enough, on a restart, I got a lapped car in between us. That helped me out quite a bit for the next green flag run.”

Twenty-two cars on a one-fifth-mile doesn’t leave much room for error and, when Courtney entered the tail-end of the field by lap 10, he discovered cars high, low, here, there and everywhere as he sought to find that perfect balance between patience and aggression, an object of desire that has long baffled man since the beginning of time.

“On tracks like this, there’s a very fine line,” Courtney acknowledges. “On a bigger track, you can afford to be patient and wait for these guys to make you get up on the wheel. Tonight, on this track, you had to get up on the wheel for all 40. You have to get by lapped cars in case there’s a caution so you can pad your lead. You just have to be on it from the drop of the green.”

Some drivers draw that fine line with a finely-sharpened pencil. Some draw that line with a crayon. Courtney sharpened the pencil and brought out the lead as he picked through the traffic with a fine-tooth comb and, at one point, squeezed between the lapped cars of Tanner Carrick and Justin Allgaier at the stripe with no room to spare as Bell began to bear down on him on the 15th lap.

Track position is important in this instance because each lapped car a driver can place between them and their closest lead-lap competitor can provide just the slightest edge necessary in the quest toward holding the check at the end of the night.

Yet, the scale of difficulty is 10/10 when trying to keep a driver like 2013 USAC National Midget champion Christopher Bell mired behind lappers for too long as he maneuvered back to Courtney’s bumper for the lap 20 restart. Bell made an attempt in turn one, but lost a bit of momentum as he slid through the middle and Courtney shot off the turn two lip.

A lap later, a melee ensued in turn three as Justin Grant, Nick Hamilton, Tyler Nelson and Ryan Robinson all became entangled. Robinson took the worst of it, tipping over after tripping over the berm at the edge of the infield and the racing surface. No harm, no foul and he would restart at the tail with the other three involved in the incident.

On the ensuing restart, Bell and Golobic began a side-by-side battle that would occupy them for much of the remainder of the race. The two would swap second and third back-and-forth with each unable to surge ahead by much more than a car-length at any point over the next several laps.

With 16 to go, Golobic and Bell would erase Courtney’s interval and would soon go three-wide exiting the second turn with Golobic low, Bell in the middle and Courtney running high, wide and handsome up against the concrete blocks. Courtney would maintain his lead after sustaining the challenge to the throne with Bell and Golobic occupying second and third in that order.

Bell and Golobic remained occupied with the fierce duel for second as eight laps remained. Bell worked the middle to high lane and Golobic stayed on the shorter way around on the bottom. On lap 33, Bell snagged some soil with the right rear in a turn two jolt that cost him a scant amount as Golobic gobbled him up and was able to clear him with certainty exiting turn four for the runner-up position.

Though no less than six lapped cars stood in his path in the final laps, Courtney successfully avoided a sting from the hornet’s nest of midgets that lie ahead and was able to taste the sweet nectar of victory for the third time in the series in less than a month over Golobic, Bell, KSE Hard Charger Dave Darland and point leader Spencer Bayston.