KKR's Bacon and Sweet Nab Top-Fives at '4-Crown Nats'
Team Mopar drivers Brad Sweet and Brady Bacon drove their matching Kasey Kahne Racing Midgets to top-five finishes in the Sept. 20 "4-Crown Nationals" at the Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. The event was part of the United States Auto Club (USAC) Mopar Midget National Championship. Sweet finished third in the 25-lap blast on the lightning-quick, high-banked dirt track, with Bacon in fourth and nipping at Sweet's rear bumper.
The Eldora feature, cited by many veteran fans as one of the most hotly-contested events seen in years at the Ohio half-mile, was a thriller. The Kahne teammates started on the front row, and both Sweet and Bacon were in the middle of Eldora's famed "slide job" passes. The two Mopars came on strong in the closing laps. In fact, had the race gone the traditional 30-lap USAC distance rather than 25, the KKR twins might have fared even better.
Two-time USAC Midget champion Jerry Coons Jr. drove his Wilke-Pak Mopar to sixth in the "4-Crown" feature, while Indiana teenager Dakoda Armstrong — having earlier captured an impressive heat race victory — was 15th at the finish of the main event.
The showings by both of KKR's young drivers moved the duo upwards in the USAC Mopar Midget National points standings. Sweet, who hails from Grass Valley, Calif., now sits third on the chart, while Oklahoma teenager Bacon is fifth, just five points out of fourth. Next up for USAC's Mopar Midget National Championship series is one of American dirt-track racing's most revered events, the "Hut Hundred" at Indiana's Terre Haute Action Track, set for Sunday, Oct. 5. For more info on the USAC Mopar Midget National Championship, visit http://www.usacracing.com.