Jerry Brickner Tops the Midwest Truck Field at Madison

Jerry Brickner made the most of his first-ever start in the Midwest Truck Series by winning the 30 lap feature at Madison International Speedway.

The twenty-seven truck field was paced to the green flag by Jerry Brickner and Ross Christiansen.

Fast time in qualifying went to Mike Corvo with a lap of 18.662 (96.453 mph). James Swan, Levon VanDerGeest, John Ovadal Jr., and Joe Valento rounded out the top five. Brickner took a slight advantage after the pair raced side by side for the first three laps.

By lap 5 the field was starting to spread out with Brickner and Christiansen still showing the way with Jeremy Lepak, Dave Edwards, and Jeff Holtz completing the top five. On lap 7 Christiansen took the lead from Brickner and opened up a two truck length advantage.

On lap 10 Christiansen got loose on the backstretch nearly making contact with the wall, but he was able to keep his truck under control and maintain the lead. Two laps later things got dicey. Just as Chester Ace was about to move into the fifth position past Holtz while coming out of turn three, several trucks stacked up behind the top five. Fast qualifier Mike Corvo, Levon VanDerGeest, and Joe Valento all wound up in the turn four wall bringing out the caution. Corvo was able to continue with Valento coming out several laps later, but the truck of VanDerGeest was done for the day.

Brickner won the race on the restart and opened up a three length lead. Lepak worked his way to the inside of Christiansen and took the second position on lap 14. The trucks of Kevin Knuese and Edwards were battling it out for fourth. Knuese would get the fourth spot and quickly move up to third with James Swan moving up to fourth and John Ovadal Jr. in fifth with ten laps to go.

Out front Brickner continued to lead but Lepak kept closing the gap as the top four pulled away from the field. Swan moved into third with five laps to go while Brickner and Lepak continued to battle it out for the lead.

On the final lap, despite the best efforts of Lepak, Brickner was able to hold him off to pick up the win. Swan, Knuese, and Ovadal Jr. completed the top five. Rounding out the top ten were Ace, Edwards, Kenny Joosten, Christiansen, and Jeff Watters.

“We had a good battle going there with Ross and then Jeremy,” said Brickner from victory lane as he looked back over his first race.

Fast qualifier was Mike Corvo with a mark of 18.662 (96.453 mph).

The twenty-seven trucks was the largest in the 183 race history at Madison for the Midwest Truck Series.

30 Lap Feature: (1-10) Jerry Brickner, Jeremy Lepak, James Swan, Kevin Knuese, John Ovadal Jr., Chester Ace, Dave Edwards, Kenny Joosten, Ross Christiansen, Jeff Watters

(11-20) Jerry Wood, Thayron Rezin, Brandon Riedner, Mike Corvo, Rock Christiansen, Michael Raskovic, Jason Stark, Brad Gajewski, AJ Kreager, Tyler Schley

(21-27) Dan Calhoun, Kyle Melton, Joe Valento, Danielle Behn, Jeff Holtz, Levon VanDerGeest, Dan Church

Qualifying: (1-10) Mike Corvo, James Swan, Levon VanDerGeest, John Ovadal Jr., Joe Valento, Kevin Knuese, Chester Ace, Kenny Joosten, Jeff Holtz, Jeremy Lepak

(11-20) Dave Edwards, Ross Christiansen, Jerry Brickner, Thayron Rezin, Jerry Wood, Michael Raskovic, Danielle Behn, Jeff Watters, Rock Christiansen, Brandon Riedner

(21-27) Dan Church, Jason Stark, Rick Corso, Tyler Schley, Brad Gajewski, Kyle Melton, AJ Kreager