At sixty-two years of age Sammy Swindell is not slowing down and on Sunday night he drove Brandon Thone's #94 to the front to win the Arctic Cat All Star Circuit of Champions event at 34 Raceway near Burlington, Iowa. Thone hired the veteran driver for the four race weekend that started on Thursday at Angell Park Speedway in Wisconsin, moved to Jackson, Minnesota, on Friday then to the Knoxville Raceway on Saturday where Swindell held the lead late before Kerry Madsen passed him with five laps remaining. The win on Sunday came in impressive fashion and if these two team up for the Knoxville Nationals, watch out, Swindell could be a contender!
Cale Conley and Cory Eliason would bring the field to green for the thirty lap finale with Conley setting a blistering pace catching the back of the twenty-four car field just after lap three was scored. Eliason would use the slower car of Dave Blaney as a pick to take the lead from Conley on lap five and the caution waved four laps later when Carl Bowser climbed the wall in turn three.
Swindell had started fourth and once back to racing he was able to drive under Conley for second and was starting to reel in the leader when the race was slowed again, this time from a blown right rear tire on the #25 of Jake Blackhurst.
Eliason would pull away from Sammy on the restart but as the laps wound down the leader closed in on lapped cars and Swindell was then poised to challenge. Using a bit of a lower line on the exit of turn two Swindell pulled alongside the leader going down the back straightway and did not give an inch as they raced into turn three. Eliason was not able to fight him off and Swindell took the lead with three laps remaining to the cheers from the near capacity crowd.
As the white flag waved Willie Croft got up on the universal barriers down the back stretch and when he slowed in turn three the caution waved again setting up a green-white-checkers finish that Swindell had no trouble completing to take the win. Eliason would settle for second as Carson Macedo slipped under Conley in that final dash to take third after starting from ninth. Kerry Madsen was fifth, Aaron Reutzel finished sixth, Joey Saldana was seventh, Parker Price-Miller took eighth, Rico Abreu came home ninth and Austin McCarl rounded out the top ten.
It was the 27th career win for Swindell in All Star Circuit of Champions competition and in victory lane he quipped, "this is probably a new All Star record for the oldest guy to win one of these things." After starting the day in Harrisville, Michigan, where we celebrated my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary the night before and then driving eleven hours to go to a race that is just twenty miles from my home I will let somebody else do the research on that one. But you can bet that Sammy's #StillWinning will be trending once again this week on Twitter!
Sunday's action kicks off my Sprint Car Heaven tour with this week's 360 Nationals at Knoxville followed by the Capitani Classic on Sunday night. Then on Monday and Tuesday the action moves to Oskaloosa for the Front Row Challenge and the Ultimate Challenge before four straight nights of racing at the 5 Hour Energy Knoxville Nationals. We then come right back the following weekend with Sprint Invader racing on Friday August 17th at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson before rounding out on Saturday August 18th right back here at 34 Raceway with night two of Sprint Invader action.
Hope to see you there!
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