Swedesboro, NJ. October, 30th, 2022. Nick Fillman, USAC ECSC.
In what could only be described as the race of the season for the Rapid Tire, USAC East Coast Sprint Car Series, Presented by Capitol Renegade season, Briggs Danner of Allentown, PA capitalized on the unfortunate accident of Bobby Butler to collect his twelfth win of the season, topping off a championship effort.
Bobby Butler and Austin Graby lead the field to green for the forty lap feature event on the high banks of the Bridgeport Speedway, with Butler getting the early race lead away from Graby. Quickly, Aidan Borden and Joey Amantea advanced positions as they moved into second and third early on in the lengthy feature event.
Hight point drivers Alex Bright and Briggs Danner began their feature event by biding their time, hanging around the tail end of the top five, and outside of the top five, with Kenny Miller lll doing much of the same.
Lap 10 of the feature event saw Joey Amantea and Alex Bright begin to battle for positions two and three as they both had worked their way by the 7B of Aidan Borden. Amantea and Bright nearly made contact, with Bright almost smacking the right rear of the Hummer Motorsports entry off of the wall exiting turn two. Luckily both drivers were able to drive away and continue their run through the feature event.
Just one lap later, an intense battle began with Briggs Danner and Kenny Miller taking advantage of Borden, and moving further into the top five. Kenny Miller lll had briefly taken the fourth spot away from Danner, but Danner was able to rocket around the outside of Miller to retake the position. On lap fourteen, Alex Bright was able to work to the inside of runner up driver Joey Amantea, and try to reel in Bobby Butler who had amassed a massive lead over the rest of the field, nearly half a track over Bright for second.
As the field hit the half way mark of the forty lap feature, lapped traffic was thick in front of race leader Bobby Butler, allowing Bright to draw in on the race leader. Bright and Butler exchanged sliders for the lead over the next two laps, with Amantea drawing into the picture before the caution flag ultimately flew on lap twenty-two for Preston Lattomus who had made contact with the outside wall in turns three and four.
On the ensuing restart, Butler found himself under fire from Alex Bright with a massive slide job for the lead, but the rookie Butler was able to collect himself, cut to the bottom side of the speedway and take the race lead back from Bright. Meanwhile, Briggs Danner over took Joey Amantea for the third spot on lap twenty-four. Simultaneously, Colin White attempted a slide job on Kyle Spence for fourth, but over shot the corner and nearly spun around in front of the majority of the field. White was able to collect the car, but lost several positions in the exchange.
Joey Amantea stormed back by Briggs Danner to take the third place spot back, but Danner was ready for the move and drive back around Amantea on lap twenty-eight and set his sights on the leader Butler and Bright.
With ten laps to got, Butler was again in heavy lapped traffic with Bright and Danner quickly closing in for the race lead. On lap thirty-two Butler found himself under attack from both Bright and Danner as all three leaders were running together in the same corner, virtually three wide. Bright pulled a slide job off of turn four and was able to lead lap thirty-three, but Butler was not about to back down yet, as he drove back by the 2021 series champion and regained the race lead on lap thirty-four.
The persistent attacks from Bright had opened the door for Briggs Danner, who had moved into the second position on lap thirty-six, and now drew in on leader Bobby Butler. One lap later, Danner attempted the slide job on Butler for the race lead, but yet again Butler turned down the banking of the Bridgeport Speedway and took the race lead back away from Briggs Danner.
With two laps to go, Butler, Danner, and Bright were all over each-other for the race lead, with Butler making heavy contact to the outside wall in turn one, but still keeping the race lead away from Danner and Bright and those two exchanged sliders for second.
With one lap to go things looked good for Butler as Bright and Danner battled for second, unfortunately for Butler, the second time he made contact with the wall in turn one was not as smooth as the first, sending Butler for a wild series of flips and even being hit by Danner in the process of the flip.
While Alex Bright was ahead of both Danner and Butler at the time of the flip, scoring reverts back to the last completed lap, which put Briggs Danner into the race lead as he was the number two man as the leaders crossed the line on lap thirty-nine.
The red-flag and restart with one lap to go, enacted a Green-Checkered finish. A policy change that the series adopted following the PRI event in December of 2021, and was announced to the public through our website on December 21st of 2021, in an article that also announced series event line up changes for the 2022 season and is still available online.
With a one lap dash to the finish to decide the final event of the 2022 season, Briggs Danner was the leader with Alex Bright in second, Joey Amantea, Kyle Spence, and Aidan Borden were the top five as the field drew in bumper to bumper for the restart.
Bright was glued to tail of the 5G of Danner all but pushing him through the corner, when Danner abruptly slowed his pace significantly through the middle of turns three and four. This caused a massive jumbling of cars sending Borden and Amantea though the infield, with an unfortunate ending for Chris Allen who had stopped and leaving Austin Graby with nowhere to go and ending the feature event for both drivers due to broken front ends. Borden attempted to continue on, but unfortunately broke a throttle spring in the exchange and was unable to continue on either.
The second attempt at the one lap dash was more successful with Danner getting away from Bright and Amantea to collect his twelfth win of the 2022 season over Bright, Amantea, Spence, Colin White, and Kenny Miller lll who rebounded to sixth following a flat tire under the red flag period.
USAC East Coast at Bridgeport Qualifier Results
Qualifier 1 (15 laps, 7 Transfer, 4 Handicap): 1. 5G Briggs Danner, 2. 20 Alex Bright, 3. 7B Aidan Borden, 4. 22 Kyle Spence, 5. 17J Jonathan Swanson, 6. 90 Colin White, 7. 23B Preston Lattomus, 8. 17B Christian Bruno, 9. 91D Mick D’Agostino, 10. 67 Jason Cherry, 11. 73 Al Cheney, 12. 117 David Swanson, 13. 97k Gary Bozowski, 14. 74 Duane Nixon.
Qualifier 2 (15 Laps, 7 Transfer, 4 Handicap): 1. 87 Austin Graby, 2. 5B Bobby Butler, 3. 23M Kenny Miller lll, 4. 88J Joey Amantea, 5. 71 Chris Allen Jr, 6. 14 Eric Jennings, 7. 19 Steven Drevicki, 8. 11 Mike Thompson, 9. 7 Ed Aikin, 10. 2 Brenden Hires, 11. 96 Lee Kauffman, 12. 45R Brett Rose, 13. 64 Rich Carnathan, DNS: 16 Charles Weslowski, 3H Heidi Hedin.
Semi Feature (10 laps, Top 6 Transfer): 1. 17 Christian Bruno, 2. 7 Ed Aikin, 3. 91 Mick D’Agostino, 4. 67 Jason Cherry, 5. 97G Gary Bozowski, 6. 117 David Swanson, 7. 73 Al Cheney, 8. 64 Rich Carnathan, 9. 96 Lee Kauffman, 10. 45R Brett Rose, 11. 11 Mike Thompson (DNF), 12. 2 Brenden Hires (DNF), 13. 74 Duane Nixon (DNF). DNS: 16 Charles Weslowski, 3H Heidi Hedin.
Feature Event (40 Laps): 1. 5G Briggs Danner, 2. 20 Alex Bright, 3. 88J Joey Amantea, 4. 22 Kyle Spence, 5. 90 Colin White, 6. 23m Kenny Miller lll, 7. 19 Steven Drevicki, 8. 17 Christian Bruno, 9. 17J Jonathan Swanson, 10. 7 Ed Aikin, 11. 5B Bobby Butler, 12. 71 Chris Allen, 13. 7B Aidan Borden, 14. 16cw Eric Jennings, 15. 91 Mick D’Agostino, 16. 87 Austin Graby, 17. 67 Jason Cherry, 18. 117 David Swanson, 19. 97G Gary Bozowski, 20. 23B Preston Lattomus, DNS: 11 Mike Thompson.
Lap Leaders: Bobby Butler (1-32), (34-39). Alex Bright (33), Briggs Danner (40).
Bridgeport Notes:
It was a career race for Bobby Butler who had recently debuted his new Maxim Chassis with a Don Ott 358 engine under the hood. Butler was fast all weekend long, and proved that he will be a contender for victories with the series in 2023, as well as proving that the smaller and 358 is more than capable of competing for wins in the series. Unfortunately Bobby Suffered a broken T3 vertebrae in his back in the accident, but has since been released from the hospital and is relaxing at home.
The brothers Swanson: David and Jonathan made their returns to the series trail at Brigeport, both sporting used DRC Chassis that they purchased from former series car owner Paul Lotier. Both drivers were able to make the feature event, with Jonathan coming home in an impressive 9th place spot.
Gary Bozowski make his series debut during the weekend with the series, and also qualified for the feature event coming home 19th. Look for Bozowski to make more starts with the series in 2023. Speaking of drivers that will be more active with the series in 2023, John Fraker and Brett Rose have made tentative plans on running the entire series trail in 2023 as well.
2022 Rookie of the Year Preston Lattomus had a feature event ending that was unbecoming of the young Delaware driver. Lattomus made contact with the wall and spun to a stop on lap twenty-two, leaving him with front end damage and unable to finish the feature event.
Kenny Miller lll was able to collect the non winners race on Friday night at Bridgeport, and kept the speed up all weekend long. Miller fought hard inside the top five all feature long, before a flat right rear tire forced him behind the lapped cars on the final lap restart. Miller was however able to grab a few spots to come home sixth.