Race winner Brad Mueller has seen his fair share of Slinger Nationals.
The 45th running on July 9 (Tuesday) stood out to him in one key way.
“It was the longest Nationals I could remember,” Mueller said. “My car was terrible the first half and I was struggling. I was like ‘come on let’s get this over with’ because I was tired of hanging on.”
Mueller came across the line second and was declared the winner after provisional winner Andrew Morrissey was disqualified in post-race tech. After the race, Mueller examined the battle scars on his No. 89 car, which at one point during the feature had sat backwards in turn 1.
The three-time track champion was one of the lucky ones.
Only 12 of the 27 cars were still running one of the most chaotic Slinger Nationals in recent memory.
Defending champion and three-time Nationals winner Ty Majeski entered as the favorite with fast times throughout practice and qualifying. But his bid to go back-to-back was effectively over after six laps.
“Our car was really good tonight, probably one of the better cars I’ve had at Slinger in a long time,” Majeski said.
Majeski was collected in a multi-car crash that began with NASCAR Cup Series driver Ryan Preece — running for Kevin Harvick Incorporated in his first Nationals — bouncing off the frontstretch wall.
“I don’t know what happened,” Majeski said. “(Ryan) obviously just absolutely miscalculated where the wall was. He hit the wall hard enough where his right front tire came off the ground and stopped his momentum. I went to stop to miss him and the guy behind me couldn’t stop well enough and we just got caught up in a wreck. I know Ryan’s better than that. It’s just a bummer.”
Four-time Nationals champion Rich Bickle Jr. was among those damaged in the pileup. Bickle, out of retirement at 63 years old, set the fourth fastest qualifying time in a car that wasn’t finished being built until Tuesday morning. Gio Ruggiero, Austin Nason and Alex Prunty all fell out as well.
Preece would fall to the back and work his way into the top-10 on a restart with 55 laps to go. That’s when Jordan Devoy got loose and hooked Jeremy Lepak on the backstretch, setting off a crash that collected Preece, John DeAngelis, RJ Braun and Jesse Bernhagen.
The cautions came rapidly in the early…
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