Mother nature ruined what could have been a colossal battle for the 2023 Indiana Sprint Week championship between Brady Bacon and Justin Grant. Unfortunately, the eight and final round of the prestigious event was rained out.

Luckily though, we had enough moments in the first seven rounds that it was hard to narrow this down to five.

5. Family Members Assists

CJ Leary was leading late in Kokomo. A late race red flag allowed his dad, Chuck, to come down to talk to his son to strategize. That advise helped him hold onto an emotional win. More on this later. A night later, similar occurrence in Lawrenceburg. Ironically enough, a late race red flag was displayed for Leary flipping while leading. Grant’s wife signaled to him on how Leary was able to get by just prior. Grant used that to his advantage to counter if someone tried to do so again. It worked and he won for a 2nd time in a 3-night span to kickstart Sprint Week with a dominant roll.

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4. Crazy Flips

Mitchel Moles flipped violently in Kokomo which led him getting briefly into the catch fencing. Two races later, he flipped and landed on top of the Turn 1 wall at Circle City Raceway. Luckily he was able to walk away both times.

CJ Leary flipped at both Gas City and Lawrenceburg, the later while leading.

Alex Bright unfortunately had the worst of it all when he and Jake Swanson touched coming to the green at the start of Lawrenceburg’s feature. Bright flipped several times and was injured. He’d miss the rest of the week.

Swanson flipped in Turn 2 late in Terre Haute for which saw two other drivers flip that night.

This week had some scary flips.

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3. Bacon’s Terre Haute Bounceback

With 5 laps-to-go on Wednesday night in Terre Haute, Bacon got too high in Turn 1 and nearly went off track. He dropped from third to eighth in the process.

However, that fight back in the final 5 laps to come from eighth to finish fourth made up 12 points and with a final margin of only 8, that bounce back is why he’s a champion on Saturday night.

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2. Leary Overcomes Flip To Win Kokomo With Car That Had Never Raced Before

CJ Leary overcame a flip in the Sprint Week opener at Gas City to win a night later in Kokomo. He did so with a car that had never seen a track before. See, Leary built this car in 2020 but it stayed on jack stands for three years. With a flip 24 hours prior, they had to rebuild that machine. So, they went with the backup and the backup prevailed.

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1. Grant Beats Ballou In Photo Finish

In the race before Indiana Sprint week began, the Silver Crown cars raced at Winchester. Justin Grant’s car had a problem and he didn’t get to race that night. It ended a streak of 239 straight feature appearances.

One race later with a new streak beginning, Grant came across the stripe to take the white flag in second place. He went for broke in the final set of corners between Turns 3-4 and passed leader Robert Ballou at the finish line to beat him by just .005-seconds for what was one of the closest finishes in Sprint Week history.