Topless 100
Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C., made a third-to-first pass and led the final 25 laps to win the 27th annual Comp Cams Topless 100 on Saturday night at Batesville Motor Speedway.
LOCUST GROVE — Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C., cemented his place as this summer’s hottest dirt late model driver at a steamy Batesville Motor Speedway on Saturday night.
Madden made a third-to-first pass and led the final 25 laps to win the 27th annual Comp Cams Topless 100.
“Man, I don’t know what to say. What an awesome race car I’ve got here,” Madden, who earned his first Topless title, told dirtondirt.com. “It’s an amazing team.”
Madden has now won five of the past six races, all coming during a lucrative stretch of crown jewel events. In addition to his $40,000 victory at Batesville, he has won $50,000 at New Richmond, Wis., and took a $10,000 preliminary feature and the $50,000 main event at Union, Ky. He also won Thursday’s prelim at Batesville.
His only non-victory during the run was in Friday’s prelim, when he finished second.
In the first six months of the season, Madden earned less than $40,000 while driving for Skyline Motorsports. Since joining Scott Bloomquist Racing in July, he has more than $178,000 in earnings, including $155,000 in first-place winnings.
“We don’t want no day in between for us to screw it up or anything to change,” Madden said. “We want to just keep riding this wave as long as we can. Everybody knows, when you’re on top like this, you ride it and ride it and ride it until the wheels fall off of it because, you know, it’s tough to get there. And when you get there and you fall off, it’s tough to get it back.”
On Saturday night, Madden started on the pole and led the opening 33 laps before being passed by Bloomquist, his car owner. Bloomquist led throughout the middle portion of the race, and it appeared that his chief threat might come from Brandon Overton of Evans, Ga., who was making his first Topless start and passed Madden for second on the 51st lap.
Overton began hounding Bloomquist for the lead on lap 69, pulling alongside twice. Meanwhile, Madden began testing the track’s upper groove. On the 75th lap, he passed Overton on the high groove in turns one and two, then slipped under Bloomquist for the lead in turn four. He then withstood two late cautions and won by .702 seconds over Overton.
“I went through a stage where the balance really wasn’t where I needed it to be,” Madden said. “Before you knew it, the race track kind of changed again, and I was able to maneuver around a little better than those guys.”
Bloomquist, who has won the Topless 100 a record five times, finished third, his 15th top-five finish in the event. Josh Richards of Shinnston, W.Va., was fourth; two-time Topless winner Shannon Babb of Moweaqua, Ill., was fifth; and Jonathan Davenport of Blairsvile, Ga., took sixth.
Sheridan’s Timothy Culp, who started 17th, was the highest finishing Arkansan in seventh. Rounding out the top 10 were Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio; Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn.; and Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind.