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Jon Stanbrough (53) passes Brady Short on his way to victory lane at Paragon Speedway. (Chris Pederson Photo)

Stanbrough Scores Brilliant Win At Paragon, While Short Wears KISS Crown

Jon Stanbrough employed the night of the King of Indiana Sprint Week finale to drive what was perhaps his finest race of the year. Even though the effort resulted in his 15th KISS series feature victory, second consecutive at Paragon Speedway, he came up short in the battle for the King Of Indiana Sprint Series championship. Brady Short’s steady fifth place run garnered the King’s crown for the Bedford, Indiana driver.

Afterwards, Stanbrough admitted that he was still disappointed. “I’m just happy we got a win in the KISS series this year. We were so close and if we hadn’t had the bad luck we had at Haubstadt, I think we definitely would have had a lot better shot at it. That’s the way it goes.”

With 45 cars in the pits, Danny Holtsclaw won the re-draw and outran Casey Shuman into the first turn from the pole. Driving Jeff Walker’s Jam-It-In Storage Maxim, Bryan Clauson took second and quickly began looking for a way past Holtsclaw. On the sixth circuit, Clauson moved up the track and got around in the second turn, but Holtsclaw fought back into the lead on the frontstretch.

Transferring through the B Semi, Stanbrough started the main event in 16th in his Fox Brothers DRC, but didn’t stay back there long. A yellow flag on the seventh lap restacked the filed with Stanbrough already up to ninth. With Holtsclaw trying to avoid a hole getting into the first turn, Clauson looked to the inside on the restart, but Holtsclaw slammed the door shut in turn two. By the tenth circuit they were still nose-to-tail, with Holtsclaw protecting the bottom and Shuman trying to start a threesome. Two laps later, Stanbrough passed Short for fifth, then took fourth from Kyle Cummins. On the 15th circuit, Clauson dove inside Holtsclaw, again pulling even, this time when they made contact in turn two, Holtsclaw’s radius rod broke and he spun down the backstretch.

Paragon promoter Keith Ford had given the KISS racers a good track for the feature and Stanbrough was using it all. Moving to the front, he could pass wherever he needed. Still it took him four laps to work past Shuman, who was having a good run in the Service Drywall DRC. By the time Stanbrough got to second, Clauson had established a half-straightaway advantage.

Stanbrough began to slowly close the gap. But Clauson began to have difficulty exiting turn four and on lap 22, he clipped an infield tire, allowing Stanbrough to catch him quickly. He turned to the outside as they went into the first turn and pulled even with Clauson. Running wheel-to-wheel for half a lap, Stanbrough took the lead coming off turn four. Clauson fought back and began looking for an outside line. But with four laps remaining, a spin right in front of the leaders brought out the caution lights. When Stanbrough got a quick restart and opened a three-fourths straightaway lead, Shuman began working on Clauson for second. At the checkers, it was Clauson and Shuman trailing Stanbrough, with Cummins just ahead of Short.

“I got into second and he was probably 2 – 3 car lengths in front of me and it seemed like I couldn’t find anywhere where I could close on him,” Stanbrough explained afterwards. “He made a mistake and clipped an inside tire, got a little bit out of shape and I closed the gap on him real quick. He was still leading but I just decided to go ahead and run the car into the corner as hard as I could on the outside of him and it stuck. Then I moved back down, just not real sure where to run on the race track once I got to the lead. I figured if he could get around the outside of me, that’s where he was going to have to get me.”

Clauson said that neither he, nor Walker, were pleased with second, “The bottom definitely went away over there. It just wreaked havoc on the line I was running and I didn’t get it figured out as fast as Jon. I feel like if that last yellow hadn’t come out, we probably still would have won. I got rolling on the outside of him there, and made some adjustments on the yellow that I went the wrong way on. We were just trying to take one last shot there at the end.”

The new KISS champion began his Father’s Day celebration early, allowing that the accomplishment was huge. It was a goal that he had set over the winter, and his father and crew chief, Don Short, had given him a good car. But he said that it had been difficult, because he had to change his style of racing to make it happen. “I always go out and approach it to win, that’s what was in my mind. But the guys were telling me before I went out, you start sixth and finish somewhere in the top-10, even if he comes up and wins. I don’t like driving that way, I like racing, you know, get up on the wheel and drive it. I had to drive really smart around guys tonight. We probably could have finished fourth or third, but we didn’t have the car to win. Stanbrough had the car to win. I’m not going to take that away from him. He was really good tonight. We just wanted to come here and get the title and that’s what we did.”

King of Indiana Sprint Series Results

Paragon Speedway

June 20, 2009

HEAT 1

1. Scott Hampton 42h (2), 2. Jesse Cramer 12t (9), 3. Ethan Barrow 15 (1), 4. Chase Briscoe 5b (3), 5. Cody Gentry 15g (4), 6. Jared Harris 81h (6), 7. Jeff Shepard 46 (5), 8. Johnny Johnson 72j (9), Scott Townsend 42t (DNS)

HEAT 2

1. Kyle Cummins 3c (1), 2. Josh Cunningham 6s (2), 3. Chase Stockon 32 (7), 4. Jon Stanbrough 53 (9), 5. Hunter Schuerenberg 2 (3), 6. Lance Grimes 14x (4), 7. Donnie Gentry 22g (5), 8. Jimmy Light 22 (6), 9. Jon Sciscoe 7 (8)

HEAT 3

1. Danny Holtsclaw 3 (1), 2. Casey Shuman 21x (5), 3. Ryan Kaplan 27 (2), 4. Jeff Bland Jr. 38 (6), 5. Bub Cummings 71 (3), 6. Shane Hmiel 10 (7), 7. Jonathan Vennard 12 (9), 8. Eric Edwards 44 (8), 9. Nick Bilbee 17b (4)

HEAT 4

1. Bryan Clauson 11 (5), 2. Brady Short 36 (4), 3. Dakota Jackson 3j (2), 4. Adam Beliles 66 (3), 5. Chris Gentry 26 (8), 6. Nick Johnson 15j (1), 7. Dustin Beliles 25 (7), 8. Jim Dugan 7d (9), 9. David Hair 44h (DNS)

HEAT 5

1. Blake Fitzpatrick 10f (1), 2. Kyle Robbins 17r (3), 3. Ty Deckard 48 (6), 4. Eric Smith 14s (7), 5. Chris Babcock 35 (4), 6. Jordan Kinser 82 (2), 7. Broc Burton 0 (5), 8. Aric Gentry 61 (8), Tony Reed 34 (DNS)

C MAIN

1. Burton (3), 2. D. Gentry (2), 3. D. Beliles (4), 4. A. Gentry (10), 5. Shepard (1), 6. Edwards (8), 7. Light (5), 8. J. Johnson (6), 9. Dugan (7)

B MAIN

1. Stanbrough (2), 2. Bland (3), 3. Smith (5), 4. Briscoe (1), 5. Chris Gentry (9), 6. D. Gentry (15), 7. Cummings (8), 8. A. Gentry (17), 9. Kinser (13), 10. Babcock (10), 11. Burton (16), 12. Schuerenberg (7), 13. Shepard (20), 14. N. Johnson (14), 15. D. Beliles (18), 16. Cody Gentry (6), 17. A. Beliles (4), 18. Harris (11), 19. Grimes (12), 20. Hmiel (DNS)

A FEATURE

1. Stanbrough (16), 2. Clauson (4), 3. Shuman (2), 4. Cummins (8), 5. Short (6), 6. Bland (17), 7. Cunningham (7), 8. Cramer (5), 9. Barrow (11), 10. Smith (18), 11. Hampton (9), 12. Jackson (14), 13. Briscoe (19), 14. Kaplan (13), 15. Fitzpatrick (10), 16. Robbins (3), 17. Deckard (15), 18. Stockon (12), 19. Holtsclaw (1), 20. Chris Gentry (20)

2009 KISS Points (Final): 1. Brady Short 740, 2. Jon Stanbrough 718, 3. Jeff Bland Jr. 656, 4. Bryan Clauson 626, 5. Nic Faas 521, 6. Dave Darland 505, 7. Casey Shuman 483, 8. Ryan Kaplan 443, 9. Shane Cottle & Hunter Schuerenberg 435 (tie)

2009 King Of Indiana Sprint Series

Gas City I-69 Speedway Friday, May 15 Bryan Clauson

Lawrenceburg Speedway Saturday, May 23 Nic Faas

Bloomington Speedway Friday, May 29 Chris Windom

Kokomo Speedway Sunday, May 31 Billy Puterbaugh

Tri-State Speedway Saturday, June 6 Brady Short

Paragon Speedway Saturday, June 20 Jon Stanbrough

The King of Indiana Sprint Series is organized and conducted by the individual Indiana sprint car race track promoters to provide the best sprint car racing. Many thanks to the series sponsors, including Indiana Stone Works for the B-Main, Simpson Performance Products, Sprint Car & Midget Magazine and Eagle Graphix for the KISS champion’s helmet, Elliottbrand Web Designs, in Westport, IN, and Kiva Networking in Bloomington for the KISS website (www.kissracing.com).