Sheldon Haudenschild Wins Huset’s Hustle

Sheldon Haudenschild competing at Huset’s Speedway in Brandon, SD (Photo: Trent Gower | World Racing Group)

BRANDON, S.D. — Huset’s Speedway is the main sponsor of full-time World of Outlaws sprint car competitor, David Gravel. On Friday night, that same race track hosted the Huset’s Hustle for the Outlaws.

Sheldon Haudenschild and Emerson Axsom led the field to kick off the 35 lap main event. As they mashed their gas pedals, Axsom shot out to an early lead, but Haudenschild was in hot pursuit and right behind him. 

Six laps later, lap traffic became a factor for Axsom and Haudenschild knew it. For two laps he hung back and watched as he maneuvered through traffic gracefully, getting around cars that were insanely close to him such as Christopher Thram. But dance around the cars he did, with Haudenschild following his lead.

On Lap 20, the battle for the lead really started. With clean air in front of Axsom, Haudenschild saw the opportunity he was looking for and decided to start capitalizing on it. As they headed into Turn 3, Haudenschild made contact with Axsom on his rear bumper, letting him know that he was right there. In an effort to ditch Haudenschild, Axsom drifted up to the high side upon exiting the corner to block his advances.

But it only lasted three laps because Haudenschild went to the bottom down the backstretch with only a left front tire in his view to get by. As he started to turn to go into 3, he hit the moisture on the bottom of the track and zoomed by Axsom, claiming the lead off of Turn 4 to lead Lap 24.

But just as Haudenschild went into Turns 1 and 2, Axsom returned the favor and slidejobbed him coming of of 2 to re-take the lead. Just as Haudenschild was going to come up and pull something to get first place back, the caution was thrown due to Kerry Madsen and Logan Schuchart getting together in Turn 4.

The restart saw Axsom initially take the lead, but as they came off the first corner, Haudenschild ran the high side and got by him to go into the next set of turns ahead.

Haudenschild managed to hold off hard-charger Michael Kofoid in the last few laps after he passed Axsom in Turns 3 and 4 for second. Garet Williamson, who gave Axsom a hard time during those last few laps as well, came home in fourth and Ryan Timms rounded out the top five.

“I feel like we got him [Axsom] in traffic and it was a little nice,” said Haudenschild about the win. “Didn’t really know what to expect on that restart, but we got around him. We needed a win here.”