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Short-track racer Thomas Meseraull escaped several tense moments Thursday night at The Dirt Track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to win the first night of the Driven2SaveLives BC39, the largest USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship event of the year.
The driver from San Jose, California had late-race contact with a lapped car, which drew a caution flag, then banged RMS Racing’s No. 7x off the Turn 4 wall. Smoke billowed as he roared down the front straightaway, but he managed to keep the lead. By the time the last corner came, Taylor Reimer was making a late charge on his inside.
Meseraull held on to score his first USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship race win of the season and earn $5,000 for the 30-lap victory. The win also gained him, along with Reimer and third-place-finishing Chase McDermand, a guaranteed spot in Saturday night’s main event, which pays $20,039 to the winner.
Meseraull couldn’t believe where he scored this victory.
“(I) just picked up a win at IMS,” he said in jubilation. “How awesome is that?!”
Reimer started two positions behind Meseraull in fourth, and she, too, delivered her best finish of the year in a USAC midget. Now, it’s time to prepare for Saturday night’s 39-lap main event and the largest purse of the season.
“I honestly felt we were a little bit better than (Meseraull), but we just weren’t able to capitalize on his mistakes,” the driver of the No. 25k Keith Kunz w/Curb-Agajanian Toyota said. “I tried to do a Hail Mary at the end, but I knew we weren’t close enough to him.
“It’s just awesome to be racing inside Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Like, this is so cool.”
Seventy-two cars are participating this week on the quarter-mile dirt track inside IMS, making the Driven2SaveLives BC39 the largest USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship field of the year. The event, which is being held for the fifth time, honors USAC champion and three-time Indianapolis 500 starter Bryan Clauson while increasing awareness of and participation in the Indiana Donor Network and Drive2SaveLives.
The second round of preliminary action will be held Friday night, and the field of 35 drivers is highlighted by Logan Seavey, the series points leader and dominant driver of the season.
Seavey, who earlier in the year won the Chili Bowl Nationals and Indiana Midget Week, became only the third driver in history to win all three USAC features – midgets, sprints and Silver Crown – at last weekend’s 4-Crown Nationals at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. The other drivers to do so: Jack Hewitt in 1998 and Kyle Larson in 2011. Seavey also has won six of his most recent 14 events and has a string of 14 consecutive top-five finishes, the most for a USAC midget driver since Jason Leffler’s championship season in 1997. Leffler had 21 in succession.
Seavey will be joined in Friday’s field by Brady Bacon, the inaugural winner of the Driven2SaveLives BC39 in 2018, and USAC midget feature winners Justin Grant, Ryan Timms, Zach Daum, Emerson Axsom, Daison Pursley and Gavin Miller. Bacon finished third in 2021 and eighth last year.
After Friday’s preliminary feature race, the popular Stoops Pursuit, which was postponed Wednesday by inclement weather, will be held. Drivers eligible for that special race include all of those in the top 10 of the series’ season point standings, plus all of the heat race and qualifying race winners from Thursday and Friday night. Promoter options will start at the rear of the 24-car field.
The Stoops Pursuit race will be comprised of 25 laps split into five-lap segments with the starting lineup inverted based on each drier’s hot lap times during Thursday and Friday’s programs. Any car involved in a caution will be eliminated. Every five laps, a competition yellow flag will be displayed, and cars with a net loss in position will be asked to exit the track.
A checkered flag will end the final segment with the winner earning $1,500 plus $100 for each position gained.
Public gates open at 4 p.m., with access permitted through IMS’ 30th Street entrance. Hot laps begin at 6 p.m. followed by a series of eight-lap heat races, 10-lap qualifying races, a 12-lap semi-feature and the $5,000-to-win feature race, which will span 30 laps.
Tickets and paddock passes are available at IMS.com/BC39.