Tim Crawley celebrates in victory lane after winning Saturday night’s USCS Sprint Car Series season finale at Riverside International Raceway. Photo courtesy USCS Media
Tim Crawley closed the 2015 USCS Sprint Car Series with a dominating performance on Saturday night and a trip to victory lane in the series season finale at Riverside International Raceway in West Memphis, AR.
It marked the fifth series win of the season for the Benton, AR driver, who led 35 of the 40 laps that made up the feature. Crawley passed Morgan Turpen on lap six and led the rest of the way.
“I saw that Sammy (Swindell) had gotten up to second and, you know, Sammy’s Sammy,” Crawley said. “I got my elbows up (on the final restart) and told myself I was gonna make him earn it – and we did that tonight.”
“This was the best this track has been in a long time,” Crawley added, referencing the quarter-mile gumbo-clay oval at RIS. “It was racy, and I was really happy tonight. Really great. I want to thank Mike Ward and all the guys on this crew for always doing a great job for me; it’s great to close out the season with a win for them.”
West Memphis native A.G. Rains led the field to the green flag from the pole, but was quickly overhauled by Turpen, who clinched her first-career USCS national championship simply by starting the season finale.
A quick caution at lap two slowed the early pace, but Turpen led until Crawley’s pass for the lead – and ultimately the win – when he surged past in turn two. Moments later, the yellow flag flew again for a slowing Ronny Howard.
From there, it was all Crawley. He surged out ahead of the pack despite another restart on lap 15 after former Riverside track champion Cody Gardner brought out the third caution of the night. The race went largely green the remainder of the distance, but contact between Jeff Swindell and Derek Hagar sent Hagar flipping off the exit of turn two with five laps to go. That set up a late race restart and gave Sammy Swindell – who had charged all the way to second – one shot at Crawley.
It wasn’t meant to be for Swindell, as he came up 1.2 seconds shy of Crawley at the checkered flag.
“(Crawley) was just a little bit better down the stretch, to be honest,” Swindell admitted on the frontstretch after the race. “I felt like I could hang with him a little bit off of (turn) two, but he’d get away from me on the other end. It’s not bad to come out here with these ACME Graphix guys – to jump in the car and run second against a bunch of guys that run these cars every week is a good deal and we’re proud of that tonight.”
During the night, $7,000 was raised to help Swindell’s son, Kevin Swindell, who was injured in a racing accident in August.
“I want to thank everyone that came out and supported Kevin as well,” Swindell said. “I know it means a lot to him to have the support of all these fans, and it means a lot to me and the rest of the family as well.”
Joe B. Miller rounded out the podium with a third-place effort. Brad Bowden finished in fourth, with Brooke Tatnell in fifth.
Jeff Swindell, Howard Moore, Andy McElhannon, Dalton Davis and Brandon Hanks rounded out the top ten.
Turpen faded through the second half of the event, but still managed to finish in 11th and secure the USCS Mid-South regional series championship by five points over title rival Marshall Skinner, who finished 13th. The duo entered the final night of the season tied in points.
The final result officially made Turpen the first-ever female champion of a national sprint car touring series, and also allowed her to sweep all three USCS titles (National, Mid-South and Southern) in 2015.
“This is huge, both for me and for this team of ours,” Turpen said. “As far as tonight went, I knew when Crawley put Marshall a lap down that there was no need for me to be fighting up near the front and potentially wreck a good piece of equipment. In that second half, my car started feeling ill and when I saw Marshall go down one that I couldn’t go down any more laps than he already was unless something crazy happened or we broke.
“I’m happy. I knew from the beginning of the night when Derek (Hagar) withdrew to let Marshall run the dash that it was going to be tough, but we persevered and we prevailed. It feels amazing tonight. I couldn’t be happier. We’ve had a very consistent season and it shows by us sweeping all three championships.”
“When you start back in the back at this place, there’s nothing you can do on your own to move forward,” Skinner explained. “We had to come out of the B tonight, and it just didn’t work out for us.
“I enjoyed running the road this season and fighting with Terry and Morgan. We all had problems this year, and we all helped each other fix the cars along the way – so it was a lot of fun. I’m glad she won the deal, she really deserves it because of how much she’s stepped up her program this year. She’s trying to get somewhere through the NASCAR Drive for Diversity here in the future, and I hope she does because she’s a heck of a race car driver and it’d really be cool to see for her. We’ll be back next year for one more go – that’ll make it 26 years that I’ve done this – but for now we’ll go home and enjoy the time off this winter.”
Sixteen-year-old Nick Snyder finished 12th in the feature and was honored as the series’ 2015 Rookie of the Year. The first-year 360 Sprint Car driver finished third in the final National points standings.
Anthony Nicholson kicked off the night’s racing action by winning the Hoosier Tire Speed Dash, and Tatnell won the first heat. Steven Russell grabbed the victory in the second heat, while Crawley was victorious in the third heat. Turpen claimed the checkers in the fourth heat, and Ronny Howard won the 15-lap B-Main.
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Tatnell was the provisional polesitter after scoring the most passing points during heat race action, but when a four was rolled on the inversion, A.G. Rains received the K&N Filters Pole Award.
For more information on the USCS Sprint Car Series, visit USCSRacing.com.
USCS Sprint Car Series
Riverside International Raceway – West Memphis, AR
Race Results – Nov. 14, 2015
1. #88 – Tim Crawley – Benton, AR
2. #3S – Sammy Swindell – Germantown, TN
3. #51B – Joe B. Miller – Millersville, MO
4. #59 – Brad Bowden – Hernando, MS
5. #34DD – Brooke Tatnell – Sydney, NSW, Australia
6. #94 – Jeff Swindell – Bartlett, TN
7. #40 – Howard Moore – Memphis, TN
8. #42 – Andy McElhannon – Nesbit, MS
9. #12 – Dalton Davis – Millington, TN
10. #84 – Brandon Hanks – Burlison, MS
11. #10M – Morgan Turpen – Cordova, TN
12. #116 – Nick Snyder – Marco Island, FL
13. #26 – Marshall Skinner – Marion, AR
14. #9JR – Derek Hagar – Marion, AR
15. #28 – Jeff Willingham – Ripley, MS
16. #57 – Cody Howard – Byhalia, MS
17. #1 – Eddie Gallagher – Olive Branch, MS
18. #88R – Cody Gardner – Little Rock, AR
19. #16 – Anthony Nicholson – Bartlett, TN
20. #3 – A.G. Rains – West Memphis, AR
21. #44 – Ronny Howard – Nesbit, MS
22. #10 – Terry Gray -, Bartlett, TN
DNS: #91 – Steven Russell – Springfield, IL
Did Not Transfer to A-Main
#6 – Justin Carver – Millington, TN
#91A – Ernie Ainsworth – Bartlett, TN
#27 – Curt Terrell – Bartlett, TN
#14R – Ryan Roy – Dyersburg, TN
#67 – Brian Thomas – Pendergrass, GA
#17M – Joey Moughan – Springfield, IL
#5T – Bubba Lofton – Cordova, TN
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