LINCOLN, Ill. (June 22, 2012)—Danny Stratton drove to his second victory of the season Friday in the POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget Series, finishing six car lengths ahead of rookie Colten Cottle in the 30-lap feature at quarter-mile Lincoln Speedway.
Stratton’s triumph was his sixth POWRi National Midget win. The 32-year-old Brownsburg, Ind., resident started fifth and was pressuring Tyler Thomas for the lead when his engine quit running on the 25th lap. Stratton led the final six laps in his Hans Lien-owned Spike-Esslinger.
“We were hooked up,” Stratton said. “I can’t say enough about the team, they give me what I want. I was trying to pass Thomas, but was a little too loose at the beginning. The track came to us and I as able to adjust the shocks to make the car better under caution.
“The car is just amazing. It seems like it can do anything.”
Stratton has two wins, two second places and a fifth in six POWRi National Midget events this year.
“I can’t complain, we’ve been in the top five almost every race,” Stratton said.
Cottle’s second place was his best finish in the 10 POWRi events he’s entered, all this year. The 16-year-old from Kansas, Ill., has raced in seven features and his highest previous result was eighth at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., on May 5.
“This is the best run in a Midget in my whole life,” Cottle said. “It’s a pretty big deal for us. We’re in our first year in Midgets and we’ve run POWRi and two races outside POWRi/”
Cottle started on the outside of the fourth row in his Spike-Esslinger.
“I drove as hard as I could, tried to stay out of other people’s way and tried not to do anything stupid,” Cottle said.
Bubba Altig of Mechanicsburg, Ill., finished third.
“You always want to win, but with how we’ve run this year, third feels like a win,” Altig said. “We’ve had a lot of adversity, a lot of bad luck. We’ve crashed everywhere we’ve been. I ran here in a Sprint car a couple of weeks ago and that helped. We started 10th and I was biding my time, just trying to pick off cars. The car was good. We just needed more green laps, but we ran out.”
Thomas, of Collinsville, Okla., started on the outside of the front row and led laps four through 24 before an electrical connection came loose. He came to a stop in turn three and brought out the race’s fifth and final caution.
The event was co-sanctioned by the Badger Midget Auto Racing Association. POWRi and Badger are also co-sanctioning tonight’s event at Macon (lll.) Speedway.
POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget Series results (30 laps): 1. Danny Stratton, 2. Colten Cottle, 3. Bubba Altig, 4. Andrew Felker, 5. Dillon Welch, 6. Garrett Aitken, 7. Travis Berryhill, 8. Tyler Courtney, 9. Daniel Robinson, 10. Mike Hess, 11. Brandon Waelti, 12. Cameron Hagin, 13. Tyler Thomas, 14. Nick Knepper, 15. Jake Blackhurst, 16. Austin Brown, 17. Derrick Myers, 18. Tim Siner, 19. Shane Hollingsworth, 20. Brett Anderson, 21. Chris Bell, 22. Tyler Robbins, 23. Dave Camfield Jr.
For more information, go to www.POWRi.com.