Wayne City, Illinois.........Wayne County Speedway in southern Illinois is a place that's become near and dear to Brady Bacon and the FMR Racing team.
"I think it's amazing how far we've come from this race last year to now," Bacon said. "We were good at this race last year, but at the beginning of this year, we had some struggles and had to fine-tune some stuff and get things rolling to catch Keith (Kunz Motorsports) and some of the faster guys. I'm impressed how fast we've been able to do it."
The team's Wayne City performance follows up a frustrating three-day weekend at the "Gold Crown Midget Nationals" in Granite City, Illinois two weeks prior in which the team ran into misfortune night-after-night despite having one of, if not the, fastest cars on the racetrack.
"I feel like we've had a car to win the last four or five races; we just haven't been able to do it," Bacon assured. "This is a good race to get rid of some of that bad luck. There was nothing we could do to prevent the things that were happening. It was frustrating, but I just didn't feel like it was anything to waste my time over. I knew we were fast and I knew it was going to happen. Fortunately, this was the one it happened at."
For east coast-based car owner Frank Manafort, the victory is a culmination of what came together just one year ago when Bacon was hired to drive the FMR Racing/Beast/Toyota even though the two had, at that point, never even met.
"To get this win means a lot," a prideful Manafort said. "It's just so great for the whole team and for Janice (East) and (crew chief) Bob East. I'm so happy for him with it being the Jason Leffler race. And for me too! I met Brady for the first time at this race a year ago, so it's wonderful."
Bacon didn't spend too much time doddling in second as he challenged and, eventually, overtook Windom with an outside pass at the exit of turn four on the fifth lap to propel him into the lead.
However, with the stoppage of Rico Abreu's machine in between turns three and four, the pass was negated and the running order would revert to the previous lap.
On the ensuing restart, Bacon continued to do his work a lane higher than Windom who stayed glued to the bottom and, on lap 8, beat Windom on the outside into turn one to grab the lead.
With a clear track in front of him, Bacon shot away to a half-straightaway advantage over Windom on the following laps.
With the tight confines of the one-eighth-mile circuit and 28 feature starters, space was a limited quantity, which, in most cases, would mean that Bacon would have to contend with lapped traffic throughout the event.
However, as opposed to their terrible luck at Granite City, every break seemed to work in Bacon's advantage at Wayne City. Each time Bacon reached the tail end of the field with the possibility of getting hung up traffic looming over him, the caution came out for an incident somewhere else on the track, which bunched up the field and provided Bacon a clear racetrack when action resumed and the ensuing laps following each restart.
It may not have mattered, though, as Bacon was clearly the class of the field Friday night with only Tanner Thorson offering a brief challenge on a restart at the halfway point. Thorson was able to stay nose-to-tail with Bacon midway through the back straightaway on lap 21 before Bacon once again broke away, separating himself from Thorson by a half-straight within a handful of laps.
After a bevy of late-race cautions put a clamp on the action before it could even resume, Bacon answered the bell each and every time racing got back underway, holding off all challengers on each restart and never turning a wheel wrong during the entirety of his 40-lap run to take the checkered flag in the 4th annual race honoring the life of Leffler, the four-time USAC National champion.
Thorson finished in the runner-up spot followed by Carson Macedo, Windom and Andrew Felker.