The Indianapolis 500 weekend got started off with Levi Jones capturing the Tony Hulman Classic Thursday night at The Action Track in Terre Haute.

It was the third win in the United States Auto Club Sprint car race for the driver of the Tony Stewart-owned team.

“We had an unbelievable racecar. We’ve been working really hard to make our racecars fast and it showed tonight. I’m proud of the whole team,” stated Jones after he led all thirty laps around the half-mile dirt oval.

The initial start of the race brought out an immediate red flag for a Jon Stanbrough flip. His white sprint car crashed and rolled before it ever reached the starting line to cross under the green flag.

“I really don’t know,” explained Stanbrough in the pit area. “They (his crew) said the front row got out of shape and everybody bunched up. I know everybody tries real hard, but the racetrack is so dusty and by the time I got on the brakes, a car came out of the dust sideways and there was no place for me to go and I just clipped him.”

The very dejected driver continued, ”It’s disappointing. I was looking forward to running tonight and trying to work my way forward. We’ve always been pretty good here. Hopefully the guys can get the car back together and we can run the rest of the weekend. Hopefully we can get it back together and run some more.

“I feel fine. I’m just disappointed. Very disappointed. I feel bad for the guys because I know we’re running on a limited budget. I try to be as careful as I can with the racecar and still run as fast as I can,” continued Stanbrough as he sat hunched on a spare tire in the infield pit are while his crew examined the damage. “I just feel really bad for the guys because it cost them a lot of money when stuff gets torn up. We’ll just have to go back to the shop, go through everything and look and see what’s going on. We were planning on racing Saturday night in Lawrenceburg and probably running Sunday in Haubstadt. But we will see what we can do.”

Following the second start Jones took command in his Chevy powered machine with Jesse Hockett and Bryan Clauson pursuing.

A duel for fourth developed behind the lead trio with Hunter Schuerenberg and Chad Boat running close. Within the first ten laps, B main winner Jeff Bland had moved around both and claimed the position.

Following a lap ten restart, Clauson had overtaken Hockett for second and Jerry Coons Jr. made his way into the top five. Coons and his team had already replaced the engine in their machine before the heat races began.

At halfway Jones led followed by Clauson, Hockett, Bland, and Coons. Boat and Schuerenberg renewed their on track fight, this time for sixth spot.

Coons began to apply the pressure to Bland and was able to move to fourth with twenty laps complete.

As the leader making their way through lapped traffic in the late stages Chris Windam passed a fading Bland for fifth.

The checkered flag waved with Jones holding a half-straightaway advantage over the second place Clauson. Hockett, Coons and Windam completed the top-five. Dave Darland, Bland, Schuerenberg, Boat, and Brad Sweet rounded out the top ten.

“Tomorrow the Hoosier Hundred, big race,” elaborated the victorious Jones about his weekend driving plans. “One that I have had targeted for a long time and one of the biggest Midget races of the year at IRP on Saturday. Sunday no one will give me a chance to run at The (Indianapolis Motor) Speedway so I’m going to race a sprint car at Haubstadt for my buddy Jeff Walker.”

When asked about his chances of competing in an Indy 500 sometime Jones replied, “I was out there. I hung out with Stanton Barrett at the speedway last week with a couple of my buddies. I would love to get the opportunity to run an Indy car. I’ve got to keep winning these races and hopefully someone will give me a chance.”

Runner up Bryan Clauson described his challenge for the win, “Through the middle portion of that race I felt we were as good as him (Jones) and I don’t think we could have tracked him down by any means and go by him. It would have taken a restart to take a shot at him. With about ten or twelve to go we lost a right front (torsion bar) arm so I was hanging on from there. I was able to get back to him a little bit in traffic but I just didn’t have enough.”

“It took me four or five laps after the arm came off to figure out what was going on and what I needed to do differently to get it around there as quick as I had been,” continued Clauson. “I don’t think we had a better car, maybe a car as good as him. Maybe a little bit better at the end if we don’t lose that arm. He did a good job at getting out front and working traffic and did enough to get in victory lane. Before the arm came off we had a very good car. He wasn’t getting away. I don’t know if I was catching him. We were a little tight. I’m just glad we could bring home second. It was a really strong run for us.”

Clauson drove a limited number of NASCAR Nationwide Series races for Chip Ganassi racing in 2008. He commented on his current status, “There is not a lot going on for me there right now. I am still under contract with Earnhardt-Ganassi. So it kind of limits me on what I can search for and what I can’t search for. But they are working hard to get me in something whether it is an ARCA car or Nationwide car or something before the end of the year. It’s just tough down there right now. I’m trying to wait it out until everything comes back around.”

Earlier in the evening, eight lap qualifying heats were won by Windom, Stanbrough, Jones, and Darren Hagen. Bland won the twelve-lap B Main.

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