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Travis Braden passed Jake Crum for the lead on Lap 7 of the Circle City 100 at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis and never looked back.

The two-time CRA Super Series champion captured his first tour victory of the season on Friday night and pretty much had the field covered. The only scare the 23-year-old endured was with two laps left to go when his Platinum Motorsports No. 26 sputtered like it was out of fuel.

But it picked back up and he won over Donnie Wilson by a little over a second.

“Yeah, it’s hard to guage what’s going to happen, if there’s going to be a caution or how far you and everyone else is going to fall off,” Braden said. “I just kind of drove on the edge of what the tires could handle for 100 laps and we were faster than everyone, picked them off, and pulled away.”

Braden qualified fourth, but started third due to an invert. He immediately picked off Johnny VanDoorn and was around Braden by the seventh circuit.

The only scared was that minor pick-up problem as the race went caution-free for 100 laps.

“I know that wasn’t a fun race to watch, but I’m proud of the win, because that’s a race that shows you a lot about your guys,” Braden said. “In a battle of pace and speed, we were able to get the lead and the handling was so good that we didn’t have a lot of fall off.

“I’m just proud of what that says about our team.”

The sputter allowed Wilson to make up a second of his two-second gap over the final 15 laps but it wasn’t enough without a caution.

“We were even steven,” Wilson said. “With this tire, you’re so even that you’renot going to pass anyone unless they screw up. So all in all, we have a clean car, second-place day. What can you complain about?”

VanDoorn pretty much felt the same way.

“You’re just not going to pass on a track like this,” VanDoorn said. “A place like this doesn’t force you to make a lot of mistakes so you’re all running the same speed after awhile.

“So I’m happy with third. We didn’t have early run speed and that probably cost us a better spot without a caution.”

Dalton Armstrong set fast time in qualifying but fell out of the race with a mechancial issue on Lap 13.  Crum started the race on the pole due to an invert but just didn’t have the pace needed to compete with the leaders.

“I think it hurt us in the long run but still, we showed up too tight and couldn’t get the tightness out of the car and unfortunately we didn’t win,” Crum said. “I figured it would go green, I was hoping for a caution to see if we could do something, whether it was tearing the nose off of it trying for a win or just ending up fourth.”

The CRA next stops at Kil-Kare Speedway in Xenia, Ohio for a 125-lapper on July 30. The complete results of the Circle City 100 can be found below.

  1. Travis Braden
  2. Donnie Wilson
  3. Johnny VanDoorn
  4. Jake Crum
  5. Kyle Crump
  6. Tyler Ankrum
  7. Hunter Jack
  8. Brett Robinson
  9. Logan Runyon
  10. Wes Griffith Jr
  11. Josh Brock
  12. Brian Campbell
  13. Preston Bores
  14. Justin Ashburn
  15. Jeff Cannon
  16. Dalton Armstrong

Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.

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