It was already a great day at the office for three-time Slinger Speedway champion Brad Mueller when he came across the line second in Tuesday’s 45th-annual Slinger Nationals.
At the time, it marked his third runner-up finish at the Nationals and first in two decades. But things were about to get even better.
A few hours later, just after 2 a.m. local time, Mueller received news that he said floored him. Provisional winner Andrew Morrissey was disqualified in post-race tech, giving the win to Mueller in his 29th attempt at the Slinger Nationals.
“I’ve been dreaming of winning this race,” Muller told Racing America. “I hate that it happened like this, but a rule’s a [expletive] rule. These guys work so hard on this stuff, so [expletive] hard. It’s unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. Oh my God, I can’t believe it.”
Morrissey led the final 68 laps, taking the lead from 2023 Snowball Derby winner Derek Thorn. Mueller spun on lap six in a multi-car pile up, but big adjustments at the lap 99 break helped him move through the field.
“We were pretty tight in the first half,” Mueller said. “We threw some stagger at it and put some sway bar in it. I said I just need to be able to roll the bottom. I can get these guys off the bottom and that’s what happened and it worked. It stayed under me the whole race.”
Mueller didn’t qualify well, having to run the last chance qualifier to lock himself into the race. But the veteran wasn’t worried, sensing what his night would look like before taking the green flag.
“I told the guys, here’s what our Nationals are going to be,” Mueller said. “I use to get fast time every week. Lately, I can’t qualify to save my keister. I told the guys, ‘We’re going to come out of the B-Main and finish in the top-five.’”
Despite battling illness throughout the day, Thorn showed pace and led at intermission before putting on scuffed tires for the second half. In the end, the change made all the difference. Thorn struggled with grip on his way to a second place finish.
“The first 100 laps went really well,” Thorn said. “I had a feeling we were going to be in bad shape for the last 100 laps with the tires. We scuffed them in practice and they did not have any good speed or feel with them at all.”
Derek Kraus finished third after dominating the first 50 laps. Steve Apel overcame a mechanical…
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