Gravel Nips Bayston In Dennis Roth Classic Photo Finish

David Gravel (2) and Spencer Bayston take the checkered flag Saturday night at Thunderbowl Raceway. (Tyler Carr photo)

TULARE, Calif. – In arguably the race of the year, sprint cars or otherwise, defending World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series champion David Gravel proved he’s still plenty capable of stepping up when big money is on the line.

Gravel topped a photo finish against Spencer Bayston to bank $83,000 at the end of Saturday night’s Dennis Roth Classic, which was a stunningly wild 35-lap affair around the Thunderbowl Raceway bullring.

It started as a Golden State duel, with Templeton’s Kaleb Montgomery leading early from the pole over Clovis’ Corey Day, until Day used a lap-five restart to surge into control with his Jason Meyers Racing No. 14.

Montgomery later returned the favor on a lap-18 restart, but a mechanical issue – later diagnosed as a broken steering box – sent Day up into Montgomery down the backstretch before Montgomery then ended up jumping Day’s left-rear tire heading into turn three.

The end result was terminal damage for both, and a lead that Gravel wouldn’t relinquish for the second half after moving from third into the top spot at that point.

It didn’t mean that Bayston didn’t make it interesting, however, as he carved through traffic on the top groove in the final laps as Gravel was committed to the bottom in turns three and four, right around the inside berm.

A spinning Tim Kaeding with nine to go threatened to take Gravel out of traffic to the finish, but the leaders reached the back of the field again with three laps left, allowing Bayston to plot his move.

The pair was side by side coming under the white flag, before Bayston pounded the cushion in turn one, seemingly giving up his chance. Undeterred, Bayston got another run down the backstretch, and when Gravel was bogged down by a lap car in the final corner it was all to play for.

Gravel drifted high, Bayston crossed underneath the Big Game Motorsports No. 2, and the pair came to the finish line in a near-dead heat.

The win was Gravel’s, however, by a scant .021-second margin despite Bayston’s best efforts.

David Gravel (second from right) in Thunderbowl Raceway victory lane Saturday night with representatives from the Roth family. (Tyler Carr photo)

“I saw him (Bayston) go around me coming to the white and knew I had to fill the hole in (turns) one and two,” Gravel explained in victory lane. “I knew I wanted to get under Gauge (Garcia) there and just drove in way too hard and couldn’t stick the middle, where I had to slide all the way across. I figured he was coming with a run. What a race. Crazy deal what happened in the front there (between Kaleb and Corey) that gave us a shot to win. I think if those two guys don’t get together, we probably don’t have a shot to win the race. I’m just glad to hang on. You don’t want to lose races like that, especially big-paying ones. It feels good to win another race at Tulare. The track had a lot of character.

“It was the race of the year. Hopefully everybody liked that. I’ve always loved Tulare, coming to Trophy Cup with Rod Tiner and driving for Roth Motorsports. I always have fun coming here. You can boo me. You can cheer for me. Either way, thank you for the support. Sprint car racing is awesome.”

Saturday night marked Gravel’s series-leading 14th World of Outlaws sprint car win of the year, the 117th of his career, and his fourth at Tulare to tie Joey Saldana and Tim Kaeding for the most in that category.

In the race which honored the efforts of longtime and continued sprint car owner Dennis Roth, who Gravel drove for in 2014, Gravel also became the first of Roth’s Outlaw-winning pilots to claim the Roth Classic spoils.

On the other side of the coin, Bayston came oh-so-close to taking his first sprint car victory since August of 2023. He took home $40,000 as the runner-up, but the Lebanon, Ind., driver wanted more.

“When you’re racing for $83,000, he doesn’t care where I am to the right of him, so I knew he was coming all the way up,” Bayston reflected. “So, I tried to just kind of time it off the cushion as hard as I could to have the advantage on the drag race back to the line. I just didn’t go hard enough and spun [the tires] a little bit.

“I was looking dead right at him as we went to see if I was edging [ahead] or not. It was close.”

Roth Motorsports’ current driver, Buddy Kofoid, finished third ahead of Jason Johnson Racing’s Carson Macedo and Donny Schatz, who was making his final start of the California Swing for Kevin Koslowski’s Works Limited team before shifting to a second Sides Motorsports entry for the balance of the year.

Chris Windom earned KSE Hard Charger Honors with a run from 27th to ninth.

The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series season continues Friday night, Sept. 26, with Sheldon Haudenschild’s Buckeye Brawl presented by NOS Energy Drink at Millstream Speedway.

It’s the first time in 31 years the tour will visit the four-tenths-mile dirt track in Findlay, Ohio.

The finish:

NOS Energy Drink Feature (35 laps): 1. 2-David Gravel [5]; 2. 21-Spencer Bayston [2]; 3. 83-Michael Kofoid [6]; 4. 41-Carson Macedo [4]; 5. W-Donny Schatz [10]; 6. 1S-Logan Schuchart [9]; 7. 18T-Tanner Holmes [13]; 8. 41S-Dominic Scelzi [12]; 9. 7S-Chris Windom [27]; 10. 15S-Kerry Madsen [15]; 11. 18-Emerson Axsom [25]; 12. X1-Chance Grasty [14]; 13. 2C-Cole Macedo [18]; 14. 73-Ryan Bernal [24]; 15. 99-Skylar Gee [17]; 16. 21L-Landon Brooks [21]; 17. 17B-Bill Balog [26]; 18. 0-Tim Kaeding [19]; 19. 2K-Gauge Garcia [23]; 20. 121-Caeden Steele [20]; 21. 88N-D.J. Netto [8]; 22. 14BC-Corey Day [3]; 23. 3-Kaleb Montgomery [1]; 24. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild [22]; 25. 23-Garet Williamson [7]; 26. 17W-Shane Golobic [11]; 27. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg [28]; 28. 45-Cory Eliason [16]