The World of Outlaws produced a instant classic of a finish on Saturday night at Ogilvie Raceway in Minnesota.
Carson Macedo had been perfect through 29 laps when Sheldon Haudenschild slid up in front of him in Turn 2. They both lost momentum and that allowed Buddy Kofoid to gain momentum on both of the front runners.
Haudenschild covered Kofoid onto the bottom and Macedo made another run out of four but couldn’t win the drag race from the bottom.
“We hounded him the whole race there and it’s one of those deals where it’s better to be running second, I think, for sure to see what he was doing,” Haudenschild said. “But also, the lappers, they were ripping the top when we got to them in (Turn) 2 and he had to change his line at the white.
“I was able to do the slide job in 2 and hopefully clear him down the backstretch and pinch him enough into 3 that he couldn’t get me back.”
He didn’t even know that it was Kofoid that was on the bottom when he came down.
He succeeded.
Macedo was at a loss for words on the podium.
“Man, I don’t know, that was honestly devastating,” he said. “I feel like, I was starting to catch Brock (Zearfoss) and the others but didn’t think peeling off the top would be the thing to do and I guess I could have run the bottom in 1 and 2.
“I don’t know. I just feel bad for my guys.”
Kofoid couldn’t even believe he had a shot by the end given that his car had given up some life earlier when he was running second.
“I was just focused on hitting the bottom in 1 and 2, at least floating the middle through the crumbs, but then that gave out and just needed to hit the bottom and could stay with those guys and not be in their dirty air,” he said.
“I just wasn’t in second when dirty air came into play and it paid off for Sheldon being there.”
There’s a points battle
David Gravel has had an awful two week stretch.
The points leader crashed out of the race on night two at Atomic on May 25, was involved in a crash on Friday night at River Cities but was able to get repaired and finished 10th and grinded out a sixth place on Sunday at Ogilvie.
All the meanwhile, his closest pursuers have been on the podium and top-five every night.
Gravel 3786
Macedo -10
Schatz -38
Kofoid -50
Scelzi -54
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.