Tyler Courtney reached unprecedented territory following Saturday night’s 4-Crown Nationals Sprint Car feature.

Not even three-time winners Jud Larson, Bubby Jones, Jack Hewitt or Steve Butler, who won all their titles consecutively can claim four consecutive USAC National Sprint Car victories at Eldora Speedway.

However, Courtney, the reigning series champ, can now claim the record as his own after winning his seventh series main event of the year. Three of those wins have come at the famed half-mile, with Saturday’s being the 24^th of his career to move him past A.J. Foyt and Roger McCluskey on the all-time list and into a tie for 22^nd with Chris Windom.

“When you have guys like Jack Hewitt and Rich Vogler and all those guys that have ran here, for someone to never do four consecutive USAC National Sprint Car wins in a row here, is incredible,” Courtney exclaimed.  “To just even be compared to and having the opportunity to go for four in a row is pretty incredible.  But now we get to put our name in the history books and hopefully come back in the spring for five in a row.”

Courtney was the rabbit everyone was chasing. But he had to do a little chasing himself early on as Kevin Thomas, Jr. shot out to the lead from his pole starting position.

Meanwhile, sixth starting Courtney was a rocket on the second lap as he exploded past Brady Bacon, Justin Grant and C.J. Leary on the back straightaway to move from 5^th to 2nd. But then he banged his right rear tire off the wall between turns three and four and settled into third place behind Thomas in first and second-running Leary.

On lap six, Courtney gave it another shot. He slid past Leary in turn three to secure the 2^nd position, and had his sights set on tracking down Thomas who  was 1.6 seconds in the distance. But Courtney whittled that deficit down to just a tick over a half second by the 10th lap as they both rode the rail up against the outside wall.

Nearing the halfway point, traffic came into play and Thomas was determined to be the aggressor. Not wanting to play it safe and cautious, Thomas split hairs and threaded needles through the backend of the field as he sought his very own first career win at Eldora.

With 12 laps remaining, Thomas bounced the right rear tire off the outside wall between turns three and four. It sucked his right front wheel into the concrete at the exit of four, and broke the front end as a result. Thomas was now a sitting duck in the lead and less than one lap later, Courtney made him pay. He drove by Thomas on the bottom of turn three to grab the top spot and construct an ever-growing lead.

With 10 laps to go, fourth-running Leary slid by Thomas to take the third position coming out of the bottom of turn one. As he drifted up in turn two, a surging Windom had momentum up top. Coming off turn two both Windom and Leary clipped wheels, sending Leary spinning backwards into the outside wall leading with the left rear. Leary was unable to restart and the series point leader ended up with a 22^nd place result. This was only his second finish outside the top-10 in 28 starts this season.

Courtney broke out to a half-straightaway lead in the final stages and appeared primed for his second victory of the night despite a particularly hairy moment that caught his attention. Exiting turn two with two laps to go, Courtney hit the right rear wheel against the wall which forced his right front airborne and glancing off the concrete before continuing on without too much of a hindrance to speak of.  No harm, no foul as they say.

The final lap was as clean as a whistle for Courtney as he raced to a 1.424 second victory over Windom, Grant, Thomas and Bacon to extend his series-leading win total to seven.

Contingency Award Winners:

• Tyler Courtney (Fatheadz Eyewear Fast Qualifier & Simpson Race Products First Heat Winner)
• Kevin Thomas, Jr. (Competition Suspension, Inc. Second Heat Winner)
• Justin Grant (AutoMeter Third Heat Winner)
• Jason McDougal (Indy Race Parts Fourth Heat Winner)
• Scotty Weir (Wilwood Brakes 13th Place Finisher)
• Matt Westfall (KSE Racing Products Hard Charger/Larry Rice High Performance Award)
• Chris Windom (Rosewood Machine & Tool Precision Move of the Race)
• Isaac Chapple (Roger & Barb Tapy 13th Fastest Qualifier)
• Matt Goodnight (Saldana Racing Products First Non-Transfer)
• Chris Phillips (ProSource Hard Work Award)

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USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: 

September 28 – Eldora Speedway – Rossburg, Ohio – 38th 4-Crown Nationals

FATHEADZ EYEWEAR / PROSOURCE QUALIFYING: 1. Tyler Courtney, 7BC, Clauson/Marshall/Newman-16.671; 2. Chris Windom, 5G, Parallax/Goacher-16.780; 3. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-16.832; 4. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-16.917; 5. C.J. Leary, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-16.947; 6. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 19, Hayward/Thomas-17.081; 7. Chase Stockon, 32, 32 TBI-17.146; 8. Dallas Hewitt, 18, Keen-17.153; 9. Max Adams, 5m, Adams-17.302; 10. Kory Crabtree, 60, Gagliardi-17.354; 11. Mario Clouser, 6, MCM-17.378; 12. Jason McDougal, 71p, Daigh/Phillips-17.384; 13. Isaac Chapple, 52, LNR/Chapple-17.393; 14. Dustin Clark, 75, Clark-17.498; 15. Bill Rose, 6R, Rose-17.518; 16. Carmen Perigo, 21p, Perigo-17.520; 17. Matt Westfall, 33m, Marshall-17.571; 18. Scotty Weir, 39G, Goodnight-17.579; 19. Nick Bilbee, 17, Bilbee-17.740; 20. Josh Hodges, 74x, Hodges-17.811; 21. Dave Darland, 36D, Darland/Curb-Agajanian-17.823; 22. Corey Smith, 66s, CS-17.995; 23. Kody Swanson, 20N, Nolen-18.111; 24. Brian Ruhlman, 49, Ruhlman-18.254; 25. Landon Simon, 23s, Simon-18.342; 26. Matt Goodnight, 39, Goodnight-18.401; 27. Jack James, 99, James-18.416; 28. Chris Phillips, 6p, Phillips-18.656; 29. Gage Etgen, 99, Etgen-18.802; 30. Travis Welpott, 18T, Welpott/Gorman-18.809; 31. Tim Creech II, 2c, Creech-18.810; 32. Cody White, 26w, White-18.902; 33. Steve Thomas, 20, Thomas-18.912; 34. Korbyn Hayslett, 1H, Hayslett-NT; 35. Scott Hampton, 51, Slinkard-NT.

SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Tyler Courtney, 2. Matt Westfall, 3. C.J. Leary, 4. Dave Darland, 5. Max Adams, 6. Isaac Chapple, 7. Landon Simon, 8. Gage Etgen, 9. Steve Thomas. 2:26.54

COMPETITION SUSPENSION (CSI) SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 2. Chris Windom, 3. Scotty Weir, 4. Corey Smith, 5. Kory Crabtree, 6. Dustin Clark, 7. Matt Goodnight, 8. Travis Welpott, 9. Korbyn Hayslett. 2:28.17

AUTOMETER THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Justin Grant, 2. Chase Stockon, 3. Mario Clouser, 4. Nick Bilbee, 5. Kody Swanson, 6. Scott Hampton, 7. Jack James, 8. Tim Creech II, 9. Bill Rose. NT

INDY RACE PARTS FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Jason McDougal, 2. Brady Bacon, 3. Dallas Hewitt, 4. Carmen Perigo, 5. Josh Hodges, 6. Chris Phillips, 7. Brian Ruhlman, 8. Cody White. 2:29.58

SEMI: (12 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature) 1. Max Adams, 2. Kory Crabtree, 3. Dustin Clark, 4. Isaac Chapple, 5. Josh Hodges, 6. Chris Phillips, 7. Matt Goodnight, 8. Scott Hampton, 9. Brian Ruhlman, 10. Kody Swanson, 11. Landon Simon, 12. Gage Etgen, 13. Jack James, 14. Travis Welpott, 15. Cody White, 16. Tim Creech II, 17. Steve Thomas, 18. Bill Rose, 19. Korbyn Hayslett. 3:54.09

FEATURE: (30 laps, starting position in parentheses) 1. Tyler Courtney (6), 2. Chris Windom (5), 3. Justin Grant (4), 4. Kevin Thomas, Jr. (1), 5. Brady Bacon (3), 6. Dallas Hewitt (8), 7. Matt Westfall (16), 8. Chase Stockon (7), 9. Isaac Chapple (13), 10. Nick Bilbee (18), 11. Carmen Perigo (15), 12. Jason McDougal (12), 13. Scotty Weir (17), 14. Mario Clouser (11), 15. Chris Phillips (22), 16. Dave Darland (20), 17. Dustin Clark (14), 18. Corey Smith (21), 19. Max Adams (9), 20. Kory Crabtree (10), 21. Josh Hodges (19), 22. C.J. Leary (2). NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-18 Kevin Thomas, Jr., Laps 19-30 Tyler Courtney.

SALDANA RACING PRODUCTS CLEAN SWEEP: Tyler Courtney

KSE RACING PRODUCTS/LARRY RICE HIGH PERFORMANCE HARD CHARGER: Matt Westfall (16^th to 7^th)

WILWOOD BRAKES 13TH PLACE FINISHER: Scotty Weir

SALDANA RACING PRODUCTS FIRST NON-TRANSFER: Matt Goodnight

ROGER & BARB TAPY 13TH FASTEST QUALIFIER: Isaac Chapple

PROSOURCE HARD WORK AWARD: Chris Phillips

ROSEWOOD MACHINE & TOOL PRECISION MOVE OF THE RACE: Chris Windom

NEW USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-C.J. Leary-1,934, 2-Tyler Courtney-1,876, 3-Chris Windom-1,781, 4-Justin Grant-1,780, 5-Brady Bacon-1,778, 6-Kevin Thomas, Jr.-1,778, 7-Chase Stockon-1,705, 8-Jason McDougal-1,483, 9-Carson Short-1,361, 10-Isaac Chapple-1,157.

NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: October 5, 2019 – Lawrenceburg Speedway – Lawrenceburg, Indiana – Fall Nationals – 3/8-Mile Dirt Oval