"The Madman" Robert Ballou continues his rise in the 2011 USAC National Sprints car points chase. The #81 MPHG ended night one of USAC Indiana Sprint Week with a third place finish and bumped his point standings to fourth in USAC national points.

After qualifying 13^th and finishing second in his heat, Ballou caught a break as just the right amount of cars missed their transfers through heats giving him the pole position for night one of USAC Indiana Sprint Week at Gas City I-69 Speedway. Moving backwards on the start, Ballou fought his way to third place after fighting off Bryan Clauson. Ballou said, "We were lucky enough to have the right amount of cars not make the transfer which gave us the front row to start the feature. Normally pole position is ideal – unfortunately they re-worked the track just before the feature and there was just enough grease on the bottom that we caught at the start of the race and the outside row was able to avoid and move up. I had a great car and with another five laps I believe I could have made the move to a first place finish. It certainly felt good to wear that Lucas Oil hat on the front stretch as part of the top three, I just hope we can bring home a victory tonight. Looking at the big picture we are on the right track with our gain in points and another top 5 finish which is a great start to kick off Indiana Sprint Week."

Ballou moves on to night two of USAC Indiana Sprint week at Kokomo Speedway on Saturday and night three at Lawrenceburg Speedway.  "Kokomo is a great track, usually prepared well, unfortunately every time we've had on our calendar to race there this year mother nature has rained us out. Lawrenceburg is a favorite track of mine, we've had several big victories there, you really couldn't ask for a better line up of tracks for the beginning of Sprint Week." Ballou added.

NEW NATIONAL SPRINT CAR STANDINGS: 1-Jones-568; 2-Stanbrough-492; 3-Windom-481; 4-Ballou-468; 5-Clauson-459; 6-Schuerenberg-459; 7-East-431; 8-Darland-425; 9-Gardner-424; 10-Tracy Hines-355.

NEW "INDIANA SPRINT WEEK" STANDINGS: 1-Darland-67; 2-Windom-67; 3 Ballou-61; 4-Clauson-59; 5-Coons-57.

Robert Ballou, a native of Rocklin, California, drives the #81 MPHG non wing sprint car. Sponsors include: Lucas Oil, Triple XXX,  Don Ott racing engines, Indy Race Parts, Hinchman Racewear, Infinity Shocks, ISC Racers Tape, DMI, Butler Built Seats and Keizer Wheels.

For more information on the USAC Eastern Storm Tour please contact usacracing.com

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