(4/28/2019)
After weeks of frustrating finishes and circumstances, Brent Curran’s season appears to done a complete 180 after 2 consecutive great finishes. The Antioch native won last week’s $500 to win race at Antioch Speedway, and was in the running for the $1,000 prize Saturday night.
At the drop of the green flag for his heat race, Curran was gone. Though a caution came out and caused a full restart, Curran once again used his front row starting spot to his advantage and jumped out to a big lead. For the next 8 laps, Curran’s lead would grow, before ultimately winning the heat race by a full straightaway’s length margin.
Since Curran had won the previous week, Curran would be forced to start the feature in 8th. Curran remained patient in the early portion of the race, only moving forward 1 spot in the opening 5 circuits. That’s when Curran began to go to work.
Over the next lap and a half, Curran would slice and dice his way to 5th. With a group of 3 cars ahead, Curran started to use the bottom part of the race track, the part that most of the field was avoiding, to make his passes. Curran had made his way to 4th when minor contact with another competitor dropped him back to 5th, right before a Lap 9 caution.
The upcoming restart didn’t last very long, however, as another driver spun on the backstretch to immediately bring the yellow flag back out. On the ensuing restart, Curran quickly moved into 2nd place. Curran then began what could simply be called an amazing battle with race leader Tommy Fraser, and that may be understating it.
Over the next 9 laps, Curran and Fraser remained side by side for the majority of each lap, with Curran just coming up short of clearing Fraser multiple times. The entire time the two drivers raced door to door, they were able to do so without touching once, truly a testament to the skill of both drivers.
Just as it looked as though Curran was possibly starting to gain an advantage, one last caution waved with 3 laps left. Curran would throw everything he had left at Fraser on the restart, but it just wasn’t enough, ultimately settling for a 2nd place finish.
When asked about his thoughts on the race, Curran said “It was another solid points night for us and the car went on the trailer in one piece again. That race though was by far the most exciting race I’ve ran in a modified. To run door to door for 8-10 laps without even the slightest wheel rub was amazing. Better yet the whole top 3 ran super clean and put on a show for the fans. It’s always a good night when the officials and the fans can come in the pits and thank you for the show you put on. Antioch is a tough track to pass on or even just run side by side. The track modifications really made the racing a lot better and opened up multiple grooves to work with. Made the ability to come from the rear of the field possible. Can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has to hold and hopefully keep our points run alive!”
Brent would like to thank all of his sponsors and supporters, including:
Steel City Motorsports
Steadfast Construction
GRT Race Cars Inc.
Empire RC
89 Design
All Flow Muffler & Auto Repair
Jeff Fields (Brandit Designs)
Red Six RaceGear
Velocita-USA
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Daren Ricks
DRC Motorsports Media
DRC Motorsports Media 