Brenden Bright Sweeps 600 Micro Sprint Weekend at Linda’s Open

Jonestown, PA (October 17) -  On the surface, it will appear as though Brenden Bright had a picture-perfect weekend at Linda’s Speedway. In the 600cc portion of the 31st National Open for micro sprint, Bright set quick time and won the first heat race on Friday night, earning the right to start on the pole of Saturday’s 40 lap A-Main. The Collegeville, PA resident then led every one of those 40 tours to put his name in the record book as a Linda’s Speedway National Open victor. 

 

  Brenden Bright throttled the Rodota Trucking & Excavating No. R7 to the early lead in the 600cc feature. Second-starter Austin Quick stayed within a few car lengths of Bright while Kenny Miller III and Jesse Maurer wrestled for third. A few cautions in the opening stages of the 40 lapper provided opportunities for Quick to duck under the leader, and he definitely had Bright’s attention.

 

  “Quick scared me on those early restarts,” admitted Bright. “Early on, our restarts were not good and I saw his nose under me on a couple of them. I had to change my line getting into (turn) one. Once I did that, we were able to get some separation on him. Austin was really fast, though.” 

 

  While Bright maintained a three to four car length advantage over Quick, Colin White moved up to challenge for third, trading slide jobs with Miller as the race approached its halfway point. Miller finally secured the position, but White continued to hound him during the final 20 laps. 

 

  In the second half of the race, they were joined by the big winner at Linda’s over the past several seasons, Tommy Kunsman. The Bethlehem, PA driver, despite all his feature victories at the quarter-mile, has never captured the National Open. Kunsman rode for the first 20 circuits, then began his march toward the front. He moved into the top five and eventually joined the battle for third between Miller and White. 

 

  As the event neared its conclusion, Bright used lapped cars to maintain his margin over Quick. When the checkered flag waved, Bright’s gap over Quick was 0.416 seconds, enabling Brenden to claim the winner’s share of $3,300, a $300 boost over the base purse courtesy of JPA Masonry and the Race Chaser’s Bonus Awards program.

 

  The fight for third went to White, who just nipped Miller at the stripe while Kunsman settled for fifth.

 

  Christian Bruno was the race’s Hard Charger, navigating his way from 27th on the starting grid to a sixth place finish. 

 

   

National Open Notes:

  Outstanding car counts once again graced the National Open as 78 entries competed in the 270cc class and 59 of the 600cc ground pounders signed in for competition. 

 

  Brenden Bright set quick time for the non-winged 600’s at 13.076 with Austin Quick turning the second quickest lap. 

 

  The 600’s ran their heat races after time trials on Friday. The six winners included Brenden Bright, Austin Quick, Jesse Maurer, Kenny Miller III, Mike Thompson, and Colin White. 

 

  600cc alphabet mains were run on Saturday, with Preston Lattomus advancing from the C-main to the B-main and on to the A-main, where he finished 25th. 

 

  Riley Emig won the 600cc D-main; Heath Hehnly took the checkered in the C-main; and Joey Amantea went from third to first in the B-main.