TJ Pruitt
Yukon Gear & Axle Wednesday opened up at the K&N Spring Fling 5-Day race with more sunshine for over 350 racers looking to score a $15,000 to win payday.
In addition to the race purse, over $50,000 in prizes and awards are available for Racer Appreciation Giveaways. Starting off this morning, John Biagi earned himself Performaire Weather Station by having the best reaction time in the first ten pairs of door cars. Marty Martin performed the same feat for the dragster contingent and he walked away with a Bell helmet.
As has been the custom of late at many big money bracket races, door cars run separate until the ladder round of 16 cars. That one move has built up the door car count to where at today’s event, roughly one-third of the entries was door cars. At 16 cars, five door cars remained to hold up their honor. By the next round, only the one single door car of Jeremy Bargo remained. The other combatants were Mitch Ellison, Tim Thomas, Tommy Cable, Gary Williams, Jeremy Hancock, Brian Lampton and John Taylor.
Moving into the semifinal round, Hancock, Williams, Cable and Ellison each shared a 25-percent chance of earning the $15,000 winner’s payday with their winning appearances every round so far. However when the smoke cleared at the end of that round, only Cable and Williams remained. Williams is working off a winner’s circle appearance last night for a dragster and Cable won a $40,000 race at last year’s Bristol ‘Fling, making the final tonight an epic battle.
For the final, Williams left first with a .007 reaction time and coupled with his .006 over the dial it left Cable mathematically ineligible with his .022 reaction time. Two days, two wins for the Bradenton, Florida team of OK Motorsports just ads to their already legendary status in the sport.
“Bracket racing doesn’t get the kind of media coverage reserved for other classes,” Williams said, “but being able to race on the big stage here is really awesome. I have to thank Peter [Biondo] and Kyle [Seipel] for putting on a great race.”
FTI Competition Converters-sponsored Thursday is next with even more racers expected to enter for that day’s $20K to win event. Stay tuned to all the action with the live Internet video feed all week sponsored by JEGS and Steve Schmidt Competition Engines. Visit www.bracketraces.com to view in addition to keeping up with any K&N Spring Fling announcements.
