Jump Around: USAC Silver Crown To Pound Madison Pavement Friday Night
Jump Around: USAC Silver Crown To Pound Madison Pavement Friday Night
The USAC Silver Crown series heads to Wisconsin's Madison International Speedway this weekend for the CarIQ Wisconsin Jump Around.
Jumping on the dirt. Jumping on the pavement. Jumping all around.
That's the plan for USAC racing this weekend in the Badger State for the CarIQ Wisconsin Jump Around, which begins on the pavement of Madison International Speedway with the 100-lap Bytec Dairyland 100, slated for Friday night as Round 4 of the USAC Silver Crown National Championship season.
Jumping around also could be the motto for the USAC Silver Crown series, which competes on both dirt and pavement surfaces.
Through the first three events, we've witnessed three winners, with Justin Grant taking Terre Haute Action Track's dirt, Bobby Santos scoring on the pavement of Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park and Logan Seavey on Pennsylvania soil last weekend at Port Royal Speedway.
The top name in that bunch, who has been absent from victory lane thus far, is the all-time series king, Kody Swanson, who has a record six championships and 34 career wins, two of which have come at Madison. Swanson currently stands second in series points. Incredibly, he hasn't gone winless through the first three Silver Crown races of the season since 2013.
The Dairyland 100 has been mastered by Swanson (Kingsburg, California), who has won both series events at the half-mile paved oval in 2018 and 2019. Swanson possesses the one-lap track record for the series at Madison with a time of 16.852 sec. (106.812 mph), set in 2019. Swanson's 100-lap time of 36:49.04, set in 2018, is the record for the distance.
Seavey (Sutter, California) enters Madison as the Silver Crown point leader following a last lap pass for the win last Saturday at Port Royal. While his dirt Silver Crown program has been top-flight, the 2018 USAC National Midget champion has made major strides on the asphalt, finishing fifth at IRP in May.
Similar to Seavey, C.J. Leary (Greenfield, Indiana) made his best impression on pavement at IRP as the 2019 USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car champion finished fourth, the best result of his Silver Crown career off the dirt, and will be making his Madison debut Friday.
Grant (Ione, California) was the first Silver Crown driver to garner quick time honors at Madison in 2018, starting from the pole, leading 42 laps and finishing third. The 2020 USAC Silver Crown driving champion, and current fourth-place driver in points, was running fourth at the halfway mark in 2019 at Madison, when his transmission let go.
Santos (Franklin, Massachusetts), a winner in May at IRP for the first time in Silver Crown action since 2018, has earned two consecutive top-4 results in Silver Crown competition at Madison, finishing second in 2018 and fourth in 2019.
Eric Gordon (Fortville, Indiana) earned his one USAC Silver Crown win in the state of Wisconsin via the Milwaukee Mile during his rookie year of 1990. Gordon started third in the 2018 Madison race and was running fifth, when he lost the brakes 17 laps into the 100-lapper. The nine-time Little 500 winner and National Sprint Car Hall of Famer found a bit of redemption a year later when he started 10th and finished fifth.
Travis Welpott (Pendleton, Indiana), the 1993 UMRA TQ Midget titlist and 2000 NAMARS Midget champ, finished eighth in 2018 at Madison and was running eighth again at the halfway point in 2019, when he became entangled in Grant's transmission fluid and made hard contact with the Turn 3 outside wall, ultimately finishing 18th.
At Madison, Patrick Lawson (Edwardsville, Illinois) was 14th in 2018 and 19th in 2019. Derek Bischak (Angola, Indiana), the 2019 Silver Crown Rookie of the Year, was 18th in 2018 and eighth in 2019, while 2014 USAC Midwest HPD Dirt and Pavement Midget champion Austin Nemire (Sylvania, Ohio) was 16th in 2019.
Two-time USAC National Sprint Car champion and 18-time Silver Crown winner Brian Tyler (Parma, Michigan) has yet to wheel a Silver Crown car at Madison, but he did compete in a USAC National Sprint Car race at the track a quarter-century ago. On that day in 1997, he brought it home eighth.
Destination Madison! 🙌
— USAC Racing (@USACNation) June 24, 2022
It's race day for the USAC Silver Crown National Championship on the pavement at @MISRacing!
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👂 USAC App | https://t.co/twIXO6o0u8
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🏆 @DirtDraft
💰 $8,000 to win
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First-time Madison visitor Taylor Ferns (Shelby Township, Michigan) is coming off the best result of her USAC Silver Crown career in May at IRP, where she finished third - the best result by a woman in series history.
She's joined by series veterans who are making their first Madison Silver Crown appearances, including 2020 Rookie of the Year Bryan Gossel (Fort Collins, Colorado) and seven-time series starter Davey Hamilton Jr. (Boise, Idaho).
The field is complimented by series rookie-of-the-year candidates, the versatile Nathan Byrd (Goodyear, Arizona), Paragon Speedway sprint car track champion Gregg Cory (Shelbyville, Indiana), Midwest Supermodified Series champion Mike McVetta (Grafton, Ohio) and the winged pavement sprint car and Little 500 experienced Tom Paterson (Argos, Indiana).
Friday night's Bytec Dairyland 100 at Madison is Salute to America Night and will feature the USAC Silver Crown National Championship and Midwest Dash, along with double features for NASCAR Late Models, plus the area's biggest and best aerial and ground fireworks display.
Pits open at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, and the grandstands will open at 5 p.m. The drivers' meeting will be at 5 p.m., and practice will begin at 5:45pm, followed by qualifying and racing.
Tickets sold at the gate are $25 for adults, $22 for seniors, $15 for students age 12-17, $5 for kids age 6-11 and free for children age 5 and under. Pit passes are $30 for members and $40 for non-members.
Advance tickets are available at misracing.com/tickets, with adult tickets at $20 and seniors $18. A family ticket plan for two adults and up to four students/children is just $50.
The event will be streamed live on FloRacing. Watch here.