Published: July 21, 2016
Kenseth extends record
West Bend’s Dassow third to lead strong local contingent
ndettmann@conleynet.com 262-306-5043
SLINGER — West Bend’s Travis Dassow looked out his windshield and saw two drivers with a combined 972 NASCAR starts, 78 victories, a Sprint Cup championship, a Camping World Truck Series championship and two Daytona 500 titles.
It’s hard to be disappointed finishing behind them. There is some disappointment — only because he was that close.
But he’ll take it. Especially on this night, this setting.
Dassow was the highest-finishing Slinger regular in Tuesday night’s 37th SuperSeal Slinger Nationals presented by Miller Lite. The former ASA national champion was a career-best third place in his seventh Nationals start. His previous best was sixth in 2006.
“I can’t complain one bit,” Dassow said. “We’ve been running really good the last few weeks between here, up at Kaukauna and a couple other places. We’ve got a really good handle on it finally. It feels good after a few years of struggling.”
Matt Kenseth extended his record with a seventh Slinger Nationals title in a spirited battle during the final nine laps with Erik Jones, the reigning NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion.
Brad Mueller was fourth and Steve Apel was fifth.
Apel, the three-time defending super late model track champion, led 35 laps. Ty Majeski led the most laps (79). Apel said his car was a “handful” for the last 80 laps, so he was glad to salvage a top-five finish. It was his second straight top-five finish at Slinger Nationals.
“I’m not too disappointed in that,” Apel said.
As it usually is, Tuesday’s race was one of attrition and patience. Kenseth, Jones and Mueller each came from the back of the field — outside the top 15 — at some point before they made their way to the front of the 200-lap feature.
For Mueller, who got as high as third, his performance might have been the most impressive out of anyone in the field.
He took a provisional qualifying spot after he struggled in both qualifying races. He started the feature 19th in the 23-car field. Mueller also had an additional 60 laps on his tires for the first 100 of the race.
At the lap 100 break, he was 13th.
“Fourth is a win from where we had to come from today,” Mueller said, adding he and his crew worked on the car seemingly all night.
He admittedly thought about pulling off the track because the car “wasn’t any good.”
“All of a sudden, we’re on lap 17, we’re up to 12th or something like that,” Mueller said.
Dassow often struggled at Slinger Nationals. Four times, he finished 19th or worse.
“Losing to these two (Kenseth and Jones feels like a win,” Dassow said.
A caution with nine laps to go bunched up the field as Kenseth and Jones pulled away from Mueller, running third at the time, Dassow and Dennis Prunty.
Kenseth and Jones, Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, made contact with each other several times fighting for the lead. Twice, Jones got the nose of his No. 20 car underneath the No. 8 car of Kenseth, but couldn’t finish the pass.
A five-car crash with two laps to go set the stage for a green-white-checkered finish.
On the restart, Kenseth appeared to get a good jump. However, so did Jones.
The 20-year-old from Byron, Michigan, beat Kenseth down the back straightaway and took the lead as they crossed the finish line to take the white flag. Going into Turn 1 on the checkered- flag lap, Kenseth drove deep into the corner and made contact with the left-rear quarter panel of Jones’ car.
“I was just real tight on that last restart and I lost the lead to Erik there,” Kenseth said. “He had me beat on that last restart.
“My move wasn’t really a very good one. It was a little uncalled for. I definitely hit him too hard.”
“I don’t know if I would’ve just drove into the corner and almost wreck someone for the win,” Jones said. “I expected to get something back if he got back to us. He just kind banzaied in there and just jacked us up.”
Dassow had a front seat to the action, sitting in third.
“I thought I was going to win that thing there at the end with them two beating on each other,” Dassow said. “I was just waiting for my opportunity to get in there and try to make it happen.
“In a couple laps, they probably would’ve taken each other out and I would’ve been in good shape.”
From there, it was a drag race between Dassow and Jones for second. Jones won that bout by 0.029 seconds. He finished 0.333 seconds behind Kenseth.
If Dassow had won, it would’ve been his first Slinger Nationals title and his first career super late model victory at Slinger.
His only late model victory at Slinger was in a limited late model June 27, 2010.
“I knew we had a good, top-five car,” Dassow said. “It was just a matter of … don’t over-swing at it at the break and take my time in the second half and we did that.”
It capped a solid week for Dassow. He finished third in Thursday’s super late model race at Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna during the white race of the Red, White and Blue Series.
“It just builds confidence,” Dassow said. “On Thursday, I lost to Ty Majeski and Casey Johnson and they both race 50 to 60 times a year. This was my ninth show of the year.”
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