Kyle Larson passed Emerson Axsom with nine laps remaining and then held off Axsom and Bryant Wiedeman on a late-race restart to win night two of the USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Series’ Hangtown 100 at Placerville Speedway Friday night.
Buddy Kofoid placed fifth to overtake Chris Windom, who finished 15th, for the USAC point lead by 12 points. The two Toyota drivers have now traded the point lead back and forth after each of the last six races.
Starting from the outside of the front row, Windom took the early lead ahead of Wiedeman, Axsom, Zeb Wise and Jason McDougal. The reigning USAC champion would lead the first five laps before getting sideways on his entry into turn one, locking it up and coming to a stop. He would be able to resume the race but would have to start from the back of the field.
That would hand over the lead to Wiedeman, the recently crowned POWRi champion, but Axsom was looming large in his mirror. On lap eight, Axsom would run the outside line and overtake Wiedeman for the lead coming back to the flag stand. Once in the lead, Axsom quickly began to separate himself from the field.
As the race reached the halfway mark, Axsom continued to lead, with Wiedeman in second and a hard-charging Larson having moved up to third from his seventh starting position. He would eventually move past Wiedeman for second and set his sights on the leader.
Larson would pull right up on Axsom’s tail and make a number of runs at him, but Axsom was able to hold him off before Larson would eventually dive under Axsom in turn four and get it to stick on lap 22 to take over the top spot.
A pair of late-race yellows would give Axsom a shot to run Larson down with two laps remaining, but it was Larson that would take the win, followed by Axsom, Wiedeman, McDougal and Kofoid rounding out the top five.
Carson Macedo would finish sixth, with Logan Seavey in eighth, Taylor Reimer in ninth and Kevin Thomas Jr. in tenth. Earlier in the night, Reimer earned her first career Fatheadz Fast Qualifier Award as the number one qualifier.
Larson holds a slim six-point lead over Axsom with Seavey seven points further behind in the fight for the Hangtown 100 crown heading into Saturday night’s $20,000 to win finale at Placerville Speedway.
Toyota-Powered Drivers USAC Placerville Speedway Friday Results
Kyle Larson – 1st
Emerson Axsom – 2nd
Bryant Wiedeman – 3rd
Buddy Kofoid – 5th
Carson Macedo – 6th
Logan Seavey – 8th
Taylor Reimer – 9th
Kevin Thomas Jr. – 10th
Justin Grant – 11th
Brenham Crouch – 13th
Chris Windom – 15th
Colby Copeland – 16th
Ryan Timms – 17th
Tanner Carrick – 18th
Cory Eliason – 23rd
Cannon McIntosh – 24th
Thomas Meseraull – 26th
Toyota racing PR
