Clint Bowyer won the seventh annual
Prelude to a Dream fundraising dirt track race at the legendary Eldora Speedway owned and operated by Tony Stewart.
Bowyer - who started in dirt tracking and now owns and operates his own dirt track team - led every single lap on his way to claiming his first win in the competition by 0.531s over JJ Yeley, after finishing second in the last two years.
"We had another first-time winner tonight. That's what the fun part is," said Stewart, who organises the event every year. "Watching Marcos Ambrose win his heat race and Jason Leffler win his heat race in their first time being here – that's the stuff that makes you smile, and it's fun to watch all these guys have a good time."
Bowyer was delighted with finally claiming a win in the competition. "Obviously, track position was the key", he said. "[But] it takes hard work and dedication, bringing good equipment to the race track and adjusting to whatever the condition is ... the same recipe to win these races that it does in our world, the Cup world!"
Bowyer's dirt track team also fielded the car driven by Jimmie Johnson, who ended up in 18th after having been victorious here in 2010. As former winners, Johnson, Stewart, Kenny Wallace started at the back and could have collected an extra $50,000 for their designated charity if they had recovered to win all the way from the rear.
In the team event,
St. Louis Children's Hospital (comprised of of Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne, Bobby Labonte, Justin Allgaier, Kenny Wallace, Ron Hornaday and Ricky Carmichael) came top and won 30% of the HBO pay-per-view revenue. A team's score was calculated from adding the finishing positions of the top five drivers together, with the lowest resulting score winning., meaning St Louis won with 41pts.
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (consisting of the winner Clint Bowyer together with Ryan Newman, Carl Edwards, Ken Schrader, David Gilliland and Ron Capps) came second and wins 25% of the PPV revenue after scoring 49pts.
The
Children's Medical Center Dallas team (Tony Stewart, Tony Kanaan, Matt Kenseth, Brian Vickers, Marcos Ambrose, Aric Almirola and Dave Blaney) came third and the
Levine Children's Hospital team (Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin, Bill Elliott, David Reutimann, Austin Dillon, Ray Evernham and Cruz Pedregon) fourth, both taking 20% of the revenues for their charities.
Attendance at Eldora was estimated at 20,000 for the qualifying heats and the 20-minute main race itself. There were four cautions: for debris on lap 10; for spins by Ray Evernham and Ron Hornaday on lap 13; sole
IndyCar representative Tony Kanaan having a wheel fly off on lap 19; and spins by Bobby Labonte and Hornaday again on lap 20.
Race results1.
1 Clint Bowyer - 30 laps,
45.285 mph2.
4 J.J. Yeley - 30 laps
3.
2 Aric Almirola - 30 laps
4.
10 Kyle Busch - 30 laps
5.
5 Justin Allgaier - 30 laps
6.
6 Ricky Carmichael - 30 laps
7.
8 Ken Schrader - 30 laps
8.
13 Austin Dillon - 30 laps
9.
12 Ryan Newman - 30 laps
10.
11 Kasey Kahne - 30 laps
11.
21 Denny Hamlin - 30 laps
12.
17 David Reutimann - 30 laps
13.
14 Matt Kenseth - 30 laps
14.
18 Brian Vickers - 30 laps
15.
9 Carl Edwards - 30 laps
16.
27 Kenny Wallace - 30 laps
17.
20 Ron Capps - 30 laps
18.
28 Jimmie Johnson - 30 laps
19.
16 Cruz Pedregon - 30 laps
20.
26 Tony Stewart - 30 laps
21.
19 David Gilliland - 30 laps
22.
22 Bill Elliott - 30 laps
23.
24 Bobby Labonte - 30 laps
24.
3 Marcos Ambrose - 30 laps
25.
25 Ray Evernham - 21 laps,
(Mechanical)26.
23 Ron Hornaday - 20 laps,
(Mechanical)27.
15 Tony Kanaan - 18 laps,
(Lost Wheel)28.
7 Jason Leffler - 16 laps,
(Accident)