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[/media-credit]Last week Elliott Sadler experienced one of the lowest lows ever inside a race car. Leading in the final laps and pulling away from Brad Keselowski in the inaugural NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) race at Indianapolis. Sadler was black flagged by NASCAR for jumping the restart leaving him to settle for a 15th place finish and a feeling of what might have been as he left Indy 1 point ahead of teammate Austin Dillon.
Fast forward ahead to this weekend at Iowa Speedway and a chance at redemption. Sadler set the tone for tonight’s race by earning the pole with a track record speed of 135.141 MPH setting the stage for tonight’s race. Never running outside the top 5 practically all night long. Sadler used patience and his veteran savvy to overtake Justin Allgaier with 58 laps remaining and was able to hold off Allgaier’s challenge to win by .649 seconds for his 4th NNS win of 2012.
Sadler let his emotions out over the radio when he crossed the start/finish line proclaiming ”They are not taking this championship from me”.
Elliott credited his teammate Austin Dillon and his team for helping him prepare this week. “It’s been a tough week, we feel like we should have won that race last week,” Sadler said in his victory lane interview on ESPN. “We got a lot of help from Austin Dillon and his team, that’s what teamwork is all about and we were in the right place at the right time tonight and I feel really good about it.”
Sadler now enjoys his largest points lead of the season now leading by 18 points over Austin Dillon, who’s night turned sour on lap 137 when he had to pit under green for a vibration that left him a lap down the rest of the evening and relegated him to a 15th place finish after leading 53 laps while having one of the strongest cars on the track.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. saw his 3 race winning streak at Iowa snapped on Saturday night. Complained of having no side grip in his all night long still brought home a top 5 finish and Sam Hornish Jr. won the Nationwide Dash for Cash after finishing 3rd. Both Stenhouse and Hornish lost ground to Sadler in the standings and they leave Iowa 21 and 34 points behind Sadler respectively.
Justin Allgaier proved to be a force tonight leading a race high 101 laps and scoring his best finish of the season 2nd. Youth was also served at the Iowa Speedway this weekend as Brett Moffitt,Darrell Wallace Jr., and Ryan Blaney all scored top 10 finishes. Wallace improved his best finish by finishing 7th and Moffitt came home 9th in his NNS debut. The ladies of the NNS, Danica Patrick and Johanna Long also impressed bringing home solid top 15 finishes.
The series heads into the next 3 weeks with huge championship implications as it heads to Watkins Glen next week and Montreal the week after before making the trip to the half mile bull ring at Bristol. Sadler can go a long way in claiming his first NASCAR championship by avoiding any kind of disaster the next 3 weeks and with the close quarter racing that the road courses and Bristol presents lots can happen these next 3 weeks but if Elliott can stay the course and score solid finishes at Watkins Glen and Montreal then repeat his effort at Bristol by going to victory lane like he did in March. It will go a long way in erasing the disappointment of the 2011 season and go even further to adding a new title to his resume. The title of Champion.
