August 17, 2013 – By Jacob Seelman for Speed 77 Radio and RaceChaser Online – Bethel, N.Y. – In racing, there are times when events truly become a family affair. Saturday night at Bethel Speedway for the 16th Annual INEX Bandolero Nationals, the Jorgensen siblings made that adage a reality.
The 30-lap Outlaw division National Championship feature was dominated by 14-year-old Jensen Jorgensen, who executed a flawless day of racing in southern New York and never set a wheel wrong. After setting the overall fast time across both divisions (Outlaws and Bandits) in practice, setting fast time in two-lap qualifying, and winning his heat race, the younger Jorgensen stormed to the front on the opening lap and never looked back. However, his wire-to-wire victory was not without some interesting moments.
Jorgensen led the field all the way through the only long green flag run of the race, from the initial start to Lap 13 until the first caution flew for a tangle between AJ Eastman and Christina Policastro in Turn Two. That incident would then spark a rash of cautions, with four total caution flags over the next two laps. The most serious of those was for a five-car pileup on the frontstretch coming to a restart which collected frontrunners Christopher Clanton and Chase Purdy.
Once the field crossed halfway, another decent green flag run allowed Jorgensen to escape the clutches of Jacob Heafner over the next 11 laps, until Heafner looped the car in Turn 2 to bring out the race’s 6th caution. That moved Jensen’s sister Taylor into 2nd behind her brother, with Taylor hungry to prove she hadn’t lost her touch in a Bandolero despite racing a Legends car most of the season.
On the ensuing restart, Taylor tried to outwit her younger brother, but was called for jumping the green, aborting the start and giving her brother another shot to get away. And that shot was all the younger Jorgensen needed after a second aborted restart and 8th caution, as he snuck away over the final four-lap dash to record the biggest win of his career on Bandolero racing’s most prestigious night.
“I can’t believe it!!” Jensen exclaimed following the feature, his 16th win of 2013. “I won the Nationals and on my back bumper was my sister!! Wow!! How cool is that? Can’t thank my dad, my mom, and my sister enough!! Everyone (who helps out) is amazing!!”
Behind the two Jorgensens, Coby Henslee finished third, Ashton Winger, who was second in National points entering the night, came home fourth and Christian Eckes completed the top five. The win may play a pivotal role in determining the 2013 Outlaw division champion, as Jorgensen held a 3 point advantage over Winger coming into the evening, and unofficially would extend that lead to 12 markers.
The Bandits division feature was no less dramatic over the course of their 30-lap championship feature, with another points battle playing out at the front of the pack. Chandler Smith, the Bandolero Bandits division National Points Leader coming into the day, too had a near-flawless Nationals performance, setting quick time in practice for the Bandits and fast time in 2-lap qualifying, also resetting the Bandolero track record at Bethel Speedway. He and his main championship rival, Ross Motorsports’ Dawson Cram, each took heat race wins and put themselves on the front row for the main event.
And it was the Chandler Smith vs. Dawson Cram show at the front of the field for all 30 laps of the Bandits A-main. Smith would get away to the early lead, but never could advance to more than half a car length in front of Cram for most of the event. Two cautions at Lap 9 and Lap 20 would give Zachary Dabbs in third and the rest of the field a chance to make up ground, but no one behind the top two could ever mount a serious charge.
The most serious incident of the night came at Lap 21, when Kamera McDonald and Blake Cisneros got together on the backstraightaway, collecting Alex McCollum and sparking a red flag period to clean up the carnage, which ended in Turn Three.
After a couple of late cautions, Smith and Cram would line up on the front row for a frenetic 7-lap sprint to the finish. Cram would mount a heroic last stand, hanging tough on the outside of Smith for 4 laps, but fell in line coming to 2 to go and could not get back to the 26 of Smith, who would hold on to score his 17th win of the 2013 season and inch ever closer to locking up the national title.
“It’s all been amazing this year!” Chandler remarked after the race. “I still can’t quite believe it. We won the Nationals!”
Dawson Cram, who finished a tough second, gave it everything he had, but admitted following the event he just didn’t quite have enough for Smith in the final laps.
“It was race him hard and finish second, or wreck him and win,” the driver of the Ross Motorsports #11 said post-race. “I wasn’t going to wreck him.”
With the National win under his belt, Chandler Smith poises himself perfectly to claim the 2013 National Championship, needing only four more wins before the end of the season in October to max out his points total at 2,000. That scenario, combined with the National Championship race win (which is the 21st event counted in the points total and serves as the tiebreaker), would automatically clinch Smith his first INEX national championship.
With the 16th running of the Nationals in the history books, the focus turns back to the points race. How will the Bandolero championships play out as the season winds down to conclusion? Will the points leaders hang on to claim the hardware, or will someone else rise to the challenge? Stay tuned, because in eight weeks, we’ll have the answers!
PHOTO CREDIT: Jorgensen Racing
