Following a two year absence caused by rain, The Hoosier Hundred was held on the one-mile dirt oval at The Indiana State Fairgrounds on its traditional Friday night on `Memorial Weekend. Shane Hollingsworth led flag to flag to capture the United States Auto Club’s Silver Crown Series event.

“We’ve had some good runs. We were never able to put the one hundred miles together the way we wanted to,” said the excited winner from victory lane. “Today was the day. Everybody was here. I had my whole family here. It can’t get any better.”

Hollingsworth had to fend off the challenges from second running Jerry Coons, Jr. for much of the race before Coons blew his right rear tire as the leaders were starting the final lap. The caution flag waved for Coons’ disabled car, which set up a two-lap finish and sent the race to 104 laps per USAC rules for a green flag ending.

Earlier in the evening Hollingsworth won the pole position with a lap of 31.953 seconds. He was the only car to time below the thirty-two second bracket.

The eventual winner assumed the early lead and was pressure immediately by third starting Coons. A formation that would hold steady for the next ninety-nine miles. Second starting Bill Rose fell off the pace on lap two.

Aaron Pierce, who qualified seventh, lost power entering turn one on lap nine. The disabled machine triggered a hard crash by young Kody Swanson in turn two and brought out a red flag and race stoppage.

“We went into turn one and there was a car stopped on the bottom (Pierce). From what I hear he blew up going down the frontstretch and it is a situation that is hard to avoid. We did our best to make sure we missed it and we were past the first hairy part there and someone behind us got in a little harder, got into us and that’s how it ended up. Nothing intentional by the guy, just a scary situation and that’s the way racing happens sometimes,” Kody calmly explained.

When asked if he flipped the racecar, Swanson responded with a slight grin “I don’t know. He got into us pretty good and we were heading towards the fence and I just closed my eyes from there. I would imagine we did or at least we went over part way.”

Randy Bateman’s damaged car was also towed to the pits from the crash site.

The lead pair continued to race close and pull away from the field as the contest progressed. Dave Darland, Bud Kaeding and Tom Capie were all having top five runs at this point.

Brian Tyler was making a strong improvement to seventh from his twenty-first starting spot.

Levi Jones, the USAC Sprint Car Hulman Classic winner at Terre Haute the previous night, crashed from the race before twenty laps were complete.

The top five remained the same up to halfway as Coons was making several challenges to Holllingsworth’s lead. Coons pulled alongside the leader several times on their turn one entry, but were never able to complete the pass.

They continued their tussle for lead in the event’s second half, as tire wear became a concern. Tracy Hines, Cole Carter, and Brian Tyler suffered flat right rear tires.

Jon Stanbrough, returning after a flip in the Thursday Terre Haute Sprint Car feature, flexed some muscle and moved to third three-quarters through the race.

With fifteen laps left the running order was Hollingsworth, Coons, Stanbrough, Darland, and Kaeding.

Stanbrough suffered his right rear flat with eight laps left. The top two once again were pulling away, continuing their battle, and entering lapped traffic with only three laps remaining.

Coons’ tire went down and he coasted to a stop against the retaining wall in turn four as the pair was looking at the white flag.

From there Darland provided the challenge to Hollingsworth but no avail. Former NASCAR driver Shane Hmiel, Bud Kaeding, and Russ Gamester rounded out the top five.

“The guys said ‘keep it straight’ and that’s what I did. I never got off Jerry more than three to five car lengths,” Hollingsworth explained about his tire conserving pace. “But as long as I keep it straight and get a good run off the turns he’ll have to beat me down the straightaways and that’s what I made him do. They (his pit crew) kept telling me to ‘wait, wait, wait.’ I wanted to go about lap seventy and they said wait another ten. And it paid off. I think Jerry had a flat right rear. We just got the motor last night and put it in today.

“I don’t think I can put it into words right now. It (this race) is definitely the Granddaddy of them all. And I don’t think you can top this. The USAC Hoosier Hundred has such history here. I don’t know what to say right now. I can’t put it into words.”

Dave Darland spoke of his second place run, “There was one good lane out there. You just had to stay in it. You just couldn’t get any grip. You couldn’t go high, you couldn’t go low you just had wait for a guy to make a mistake or blow a tire. The racetrack was just one lane.

“There was a couple of times during the race when I had to back off. And just not wear your stuff out. Probably the last three times we run here we’ve had flat tires. We just had to make sure we didn’t make that mistake again. It’s hard to have more car and not be able to use it. We just decided that we would run the car as hard as we could and try to finish the race,” Darland continued.

“This one is as about as narrow as they get,” the second place finisher went on to say referring to racing conditions. “Duquoin (IL) gets about the same and tire wear there is bad. So this one and DuQuoin are the ones that have the tire issues and you need to complete the race. If you got too low or too high you just didn’t go as good. I wasn’t able to drive the car as capable as it was being driven. We just had to make sure we saved enough tire to complete the race.”

Shane Hmiel was pleased with his third place finish.“The big deal was having a good car. I grew up racing long races where you have to conserve tires and keep the car underneath you,” alluding to his time spent racing in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. “The Silver Crown Series is more suited the way I have been running for the last ten years.”

Hmiel weighed in on Coons’ fall from second and his race overall, “Jerry probably had a car that could have won the race. I might be a little biased because he is my teammate. Coming from the back at the Hoosier Hundred considering it’s my first time on a dirt mile, that’s pretty exciting. I passed guys that have doing this a long time. I’m just trying to learn dirt. This is my thirteenth dirt race in my life. I passed guys like Stanbrough, Brian Tyler, Bud Kaeding, Josh Wise, Levi Jones. National Champions that I passed. That shows how good my racecar was. I’m just an OK driver with a really great car.

“Three years ago I’d have crashed us both running for second. My tire started shaking right when I caught Dave and I thought ‘I need to just finish here.’ For the month I have been living on Levi Jones couch just trying to make a living sprint car racing,” concluded Hmiel.

A disappointed Jerry Coons Jr. spoke of his heartbreak, “I really didn’t think I was being that hard on it (right rear tire). We were a lot faster than Shane (Hollingsworth) and he was just kind of keeping me slow. There for a while I just rode around. Under that red our tires looked good and the last fifteen laps or so I was really letting it rip. I thought I had plenty of tire left. It’s unfortunate.

“The frustrating part was me just having such a faster race car. Shane did what he needed to do. He did a heck of a job and never made a mistake. The racetrack was just one lane. We were a lot faster. Had a great racecar. We just couldn’t get a lane. I had runs on him. I pulled up next to him a number of times but this place is just so sandy that when you pull out of line you just get wheelspin. We had a little miss in the motor and it got pretty bad there at the end of the race so that was hurting me. But it’s just unfortunate. One lap left. Especially when you don’t think you used it up. I’m usually pretty good on tires and pretty good at conserving them. It’s kind of frustrating when you don’t make them last,” concluded Coons about his strong run and near miss.

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