Madden Goes Back-to-Back at Marion Center; Comes up From 22nd

Chris Madden celebrating in Victory Lane after competing with the World of Outlaws at Marion Center Raceway in Marion Center, PA (Photo: Emily Schwanke | World Racing Group)

MARION CENTER, Pa. — The World of Outlaws late models headed to Marion Center Raceway to race in the Connor Bobik Memorial.

Before the race began and the preliminaries were going on, Drake Troutman had the fastest time around the track with a 14.410 second lap.

Cade Dillard and Kyle Bronson led the 27-car field to the starting line in Turn 4 to kick off the 50-lap A-Main. As everyone raced towards Turns 1 and 2 and came out, Bronson was in front but wouldn’t have the lead until going into the next set of corners. Coming out of Turn 2, Dillard was right beside Bronson and Nick Hoffman was right on Dillard’s heels.

Right before the beginning of Lap 27, Hoffman pulled a slide-job on Dillard by going low in Turn 3 and coming out almost the same as Dillard. He squeezed himself in front of Dillard by nearly clipping his front end to take over second.

On Lap 33, Chris Madden who had started 22nd, went to the inside of Hoffman to attempt to take over third as Dillard had passed Hoffman a few laps before. Madden successfully claimed the third-place spot from Hoffman coming off of Turn 2 by keeping to the bottom.

Three laps later, Madden’s efforts of trailing behind Dillard came to an end as he took over second coming off of his favorite turn of the number two variety. Although he raced side-by-side with Dillard down the back stretch, he still maintained the lead as he turned the next corner and pulled away on the front straight.

Kyle Bronson competing with the World of Outlaws at Marion Center Raceway in Marion Center, PA (Photo: Emily Schwanke | World Racing Group)

Dillard, still reeling from having second snatched from him eight laps before, he got into a fight with Hoffman who was going to try and pass him for third. Hoffman was side-by-side with him down the front chute and pulled away from him just a little bit to be scored third at the line, but going into Turns 1 and 2 Dillard took the high side and went wheel-to-wheel with Hoffman. Dillard didn’t get the bite he was looking for off of Turn 2 and Hoffman took over third.

As soon as that battle was over, it was almost like Madden knew it because he then went after Bronson for the lead. He went low while Bronson went high and was right there throughout the turns and the straightaways. Going through Turns 3 and 4, they were side-by-side but Madden’s nose was just ahead enough of Bronson’s that he had just a little more speed. He was scored as the leader to begin Lap 47.

The top three would stay like that until the end of the feature with Michael Norris and Dillard coming in fourth and fifth, respectively.

“I think we changed everything but the driver and he was next they [my team] said,” said Madden. “We worked hard and I told my guys that we can’t just keep tweaking this thing, we have to make changes because we’re terrible. Well we went to work and put our heads together and here we are. Happy to be in Victory Lane tonight.”