Payday in Las Vegas: Corey Day takes the lead on lap 11, doesn’t look back to win the second night of SugarBee Blackjack Bash

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By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com) 

Kfost91197@gmail.com

Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews

Las Vegas-It’s amazing how a driver can figure things out and be a force on a track. It also shows the driver’s growth and talent in mastering this discipline. 

On Friday night, during the second night of the SugarBee Blackjack Bash at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway dirt track, this is what Corey Day did as he won the 25-lap feature event for his first win in the sprint car and first of the season with Interstate Batteries High Limit Racing. 

This is Day’s second win in the last three races run at the dirt track in Las Vegas. It has quickly changed the narrative from a few years ago, with High Limit, that he was only good at the bullrings. 

“To be honest, your race car matters a lot and how it handles on a half mile way more than on a short track,” Day explained. “Short track, you can be off a little bit and go pound the curb really hard and still make speed and kind of, you know, make up for the for the not so greatness of the race car, for lack of better terminology. But yeah, on a half mile,  you’re wide open most of the time, so there’s not really much, much pace to find. If your car is not good, it’s just kind of whoever has the most grip, and whoever’s got the most drive in their car. And overall, I think we’ve just done a really good job of getting our car better on these half miles these past couple years.” 

For it to be another payday in the desert, he had to be near-perfect. This is what he did as he started the feature in the fourth spot and had taken the lead on lap 11. From there, he hung on to win the $10,000 to win event.   

“Talked to you last night about the things that I did wrong and what we could have done better with our car, and I feel like, you know, I executed everything I could and we got our car better,” Day explained. “ So, yeah, always awesome when you can note the things that you did wrong, and then, do them right the night after, so thanks to my team. Really, really, really good car and then just a good night overall.

Day and Larson also went quick time in their qualifying groups, too, which set them up to dash. 

With the win and second-place finish on Thursday, He is also locked in to the first heat race and will start fourth after being the high-point man through the first two nights of action.  

Leading the first 10 circuits was Aaron Reutzel. Reutzel also locks into a heat race, where he’ll start fourth after a second-place run. Joining those two as lock-ins will be Kyle Laron and Tanner Thorson. 

Rounding out the podium was James McFadden. It was a nice bounce-back for only his second night running in the States. 

He is also the fifth guy in event points, which means he will have to qualify on Saturday. But the main thing that bit him in the race was the fact that Day simply had track position. 

“I think a little bit of track position helps,” McFadden said. “He got up there pretty early, and then really didn’t step away from us late. Aaron and I were with him. So I don’t think he was, I don’t think he was any foster outright pace-wise. But he got there early, found the bottom early. So it’s hard to get down to the bottom early when you kind of just pounded it around on the top.” 

The track conditions were much different than Thursday, too. It was much drier, and not too much water was applied throughout the night. Plus, there was a massive bump in turn 3, which made for some crazy rides.  

“It was the size of one of these sprint cars,” fifth-place finisher Tyler Courtney said. “It was nuts.  Like you had to hit it just right, and even if you hit it just right, it was still tough to get through there.” 

The series will wrap the Blackjack Bash tonight after the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Race finishes.