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NO MORE SECOND THOUGHTS; WINDOM FINALLY HITS THE WIN COLUMN AT THE BURG

Lawrenceburg, Indiana.........Chris Windom knows how to win. His 15 career USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car wins certainly attest to that. Of those 15 wins, though, one place that had eluded him over the past decade was southeastern Indiana's Lawrenceburg Speedway.

In almost a cruel way, Windom had finished second on five different occasions during his career in USAC competition at the three-eighths-mile dirt oval, including last Fall's most recent stop on the tour.

On Saturday night, the Canton, Illinois native would shed the label of perennial Lawrenceburg runner-up by leading all 30 laps on his way to victory in the 2017 Midwest season opener for the series.

After a rough February patch in the first two races to begin the season down south in Ocala, Fla., Windom came back to the Midwest eager to pick up right where he left off last season in his Baldwin Brothers Racing/Fox Paving - AMSOIL/DRC/Claxton. After picking up a non-sanctioned sprint car win a week ago in Mansfield, Ohio, Windom followed up by claiming his first USAC victory at Lawrenceburg, one that was a long time in the making.

"I've been fast here a lot over the years," Windom recalls. "I know I've finished second quite a few times here, but I've never been able to click off a win. But we've been fast all year; we just had a little misfortune down in Florida, but it's nice to come back up here and get the momentum going early here in the Midwest."

Windom began the 30-lap feature from the outside of the front row alongside polesitter Chad Boespflug. By the time the field reached turn one just after taking the green flag, mayhem ensued as both occupants of the third row were wiped out in a frightening double-flip involving Dave Darland and Chase Stockon. Both drivers were able to walk away, but their respective races were over just as they had begun.

On the complete restart, Boespflug initially held the advantage as he and Windom went side-by-side into turn one, but Windom used a big run down the banking off turn two to blast around the outside of Boespflug to grab the lead. Each time during the first two circuits Boespflug stuck a nose underneath, Windom always had an answer. Once clear, Windom shot away to a substantial advantage, holding a full-straightaway lead by the time the caution fell for the slowing car of Carson Short on lap nine.

With the lead erased and the field reset for the ensuing restart, Hunter Schuerenberg began to make his charge, slipping underneath Boespflug for second into turn three. Schuerenberg's chase was aimed at running down Windom for the lead, but the pursuit would end abruptly when he biked it in turn one, sending him into a violent series of barrel-rolls before coming to a rest near the turn two wall. Schuerenberg was able to climb out of his battered machine and walk away from the breathtaking accident.

The lap 10 restart saw Boespflug once again trying to gain any foothold he could on the bottom, but the undaunted Windom kept his foot in it and drove around the outside of Boespflug to maintain his lead.

"I knew I just had to have a good first and second lap on those restarts because Chad could slide up in front of me there," Windom explained. "It was hard to hit my marks consistently running the line I was running. I knew I had to hit those laps and we'd be able to pull away from him."

Just past the halfway point, Windom neared the tail end of the field. As Windom weaved his way through the lapped traffic, a trail of sparks began to stream out of the rear of the orange No. 5. With the brake rotor glowing red hot and Windom mired in a logjam, Boespflug was able to shrink the deficit somewhat. But, by lap 24, Windom was in the clear as he lapped all the way up to 10th place.

"I was hoping my brakes weren't going out because they were sparking pretty early in the race," Windom recalls. "I tried to lay off them a little bit, but it was kind of hard to since I didn't know how close anybody was to me. I figured I would run as hard as I could and if they went, they went out. I never lost the brakes, though, but I was on them hard. I could see the sparks flying up in front of my eyes going into the corner. I had to get on the brakes pretty hard to enter the way I was because of the holes getting into turns one and three."

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