DUQUOIN, Ill. – Trey Robb made a point on Saturday night inside the Southern Illinois Center: there was no one better in a winged micro sprint than he was during the fifth annual Shamrock Classic.
After winning his Dash for Cash on Friday night to earn the pole for the 30-lapper, Robb darted out to the lead from the outset and never looked back.
He wired the field to pick up the winner’s check in dominating fashion, beating Brady Bacon to the checkered flag by 1.453 seconds in the end.
“We accomplished what we came here to do tonight, and that was win,” Robb said in victory lane. “I’m just really excited for our team. We’ve run well at all these big races in the past and it’s nice to finally bring home a trophy for all our efforts.”
Though Robb pulled out to a near-two second margin prior to halfway, it was a sequence of timely cautions in the second half of the race that iced the victory for him.
Shortly after the crossed flags were displayed, Robb was on the verge of catching the back of the field and being mired in heavy traffic, potentially opening the door for those behind him to pounce.
Then came a caution for the spun car of Mariah Ede in turn one with nine to go, and the way was cleared like Moses parting the Red Sea.
“You just had to be really aggressive coming off turn four (to pass slower cars); you couldn’t really do anything down the backstretch, so you just had to drag race down the front and hope it stuck,” Robb explained. Luckily I was able to drive in deeper to turn one than a lot of guys were, and that helped us for a while there.
“This is a good feeling. There’s a lot of good cars here,” he added. “I knew Brady was behind me, and when the track’s around the bottom he’s usually really strong, so to beat him tonight is great for us.”
Bacon tried everything he could to chase Robb down at the end, alternating his line on each end of the track and going both low and high in an attempt to make up ground, but simply couldn’t close.
“Starting position was everything; we just started too far back,” Bacon lamented. “The midgets can’t do on the bottom quite what the micros can. I just couldn’t keep my speed up on top in (turns) one and two, and he was better than I was on that end on the bottom, so he was going to have to mess up if I wanted a shot at him and he just didn’t mess up. Props to Trey; he ran a great race.”
After running second for the first 18 laps, Milan faded slightly down the stretch but hung on to complete the podium.
Friday’s second Dash for Cash winner, Ryan Timms, and Alex Burgener were the balance of the top five.
Finishing sixth through 10th were Aiden Purdue, Chase Porter, Joe B. Miller, Chad Elliott and Chris Cochran.
The finish:
Trey Robb, Brady Bacon, Scotty Milan, Ryan Timms, Alex Burgener, Aiden Purdue, Chase Porter, Joe B. Miller, Chad Elliott, Chris Cochran, Dylan Kadous, Kameron Key, Jordan Howell, Mariah Ede, Jordan Clary, Laydon Pearson, Andy Bishop, Alex Midkiff, Andrew Cockman, Zach Hubbard, James Scott, Michael Brummitt.