Illinois native pulls rare dirt mile double with USAC victory at the Springfield Mile

Last month, Shane Cockrum had plenty of dirt to rub on his wound. On Sunday, he was as happy as a pig in mud.

Cockrum, a Benton native, waited patiently for his opportunity and then won his first USAC Silver Crown Series Tony Bettenhausen 100 on the Springfield Mile at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. The win came just six weeks after he ran out of fuel and settled for third after leading 75 of the 100 miles in the Ted Horn 100 at the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds.

The southern Illinois driver now has pocketed wins on both in-state dirt mile tracks — Cockrum won at Du Quoin in both 2014 and 2015.

Background:Heavy overnight rains force postponement of Bettenhausen 100 race at Illinois State Fair

“That is special,” Cockrum said. “There’s a very short list of guys who have won Springfield and Du Quoin. The Illinois State Fair is so storied and historic and I’ve been coming here since I was 2 years old coming here with my parents in the stands and just dreaming (of winning here). I thought maybe I’d get a shot at it, but I didn’t think I’d win it so it’s pretty cool to say that.”

The win eases the pain of Du Quoin a bit, he said.

“I screwed up Du Quoin — there ain’t another way around it,” Cockrum said. “I really wanted to win (in front of the) hometown crowd. They say if you can’t win the show, be the show and certainly, we were the show. It’s a tough pill to swallow.

“So we probably had a little extra (motivation) behind us coming into today. Sometimes if race cars are fast and drivers have confidence, they’re tough to beat and that was kind of the case today.”

He survived two restarts over the final 10 laps and beat another Illinois driver, Shane Cottle, of Kansas — a small town between Charleston and Paris on Illinois 16.

The story of the day, however, was Muskogee, Oklahoma, native Kaylee Bryson. Not only did she become the first woman to lead a lap in USAC Silver Crown Series history but she bucked the trend and drove near the top of the race track while leading 72 of the 100 laps.

"Just friggin' mash the gas down and go as fast as you can, pretty much," Bryson said of taking the higher line. Race historian Jay Hardin said it's almost unheard of to have someone dare to hug the outside wall as she did for much of her lead.

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"You get a lot of momentum built up at the top so I knew it would be faster but it eventually took rubber and you can't beat rubber — it's pretty fast — so then I had to stick to the bottom."

Bryson opened up a lead of nearly six seconds in the first 15 laps but then seemed to have car trouble as C.J. Leary, of Greenfield, Indiana, passed her on lap 23. Bryson regained the lead from laps 24-33 and, after another brief Leary lead following a restart, she motored to the front from laps 35-74. Leary’s engine died on lap 57.

Bryson pushed her lead back to roughly five seconds by lap 70. Perhaps she could’ve maintained the lead if the race would’ve stayed green. But Springfield’s Korey Weyant blew a tire. On the lap 75 restart, Cockrum took the lead and Bryson eventually drifted back and finished fifth after battling several issues.

"The ladder arm broke and the tire was going away really bad so there was a really bad shake after that last restart. So, no good. The car lasted me a really long time," Bryson said, but added, "For 70-some laps, we had a really good car."

By lap 83, Cockrum enjoyed an approximately four-second lead but the caution came out for a stopped car on lap 90 and after one lap of green-flag racing, Justin Grant of Ione, California, blew an engine on lap 94 to bring out another caution.

Cockrum easily pulled away from Cottle on each restart to finally win on the Springfield Mile after nine starts here.

Cottle said the caution flag on lap 90 didn’t help matters.

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“We were catching him there towards the end of the long run and then the yellow came out and I think sealed my tires up and got them cold,” Cottle said. “I just didn’t have the take-off that he had.

“I know how these … races are: you just burn your tires up and run out of fuel. We weren’t saving tires as much as we could have but he might’ve saved them a little better than we did this round.”

With Logan Seavey’s third-place finish and Kody Swanson’s fourth-place finish, the points leaders head into the series finale at the Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in Brownsburg, Indiana separated by just three points. Seavey, of Sutter, California, leads the Kingsburg, California native 604-601 after entering Springfield tied at the top.

The race was stopped on lap 33 when Mike Haggenbottom flipped after he made contact with Dallas Hewitt. Haggenbottom emerged from his car before it was towed.

The race was originally scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 20 during the final weekend of the Illinois State Fair but rain forced the series to reschedule to October. Instead of the normal hot conditions, Saturday’s high temperature was just 58 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: USAC Tony Bettenhausen 100 in Springfield won by Illinois native