The California native and Noblesville, Ind., resident earned his last Eldora victory May 6. He captured his first and much coveted USAC sprint car victory at Eldora with the Don Branson/Judd Larson Classic win.
“We’ve been so close here a number of times and we were close again to giving it away,” Clauson told a cheering crowd from victory lane. “But after getting through those last few laps, we were finally able to get the monkey off our back. … Man, it feels good to win a sprint car race at Eldora!”
Saturday night, Clauson was leading the Belleville Midget Nationals when his car made contact with the guard rail in Turns 3-4. His midget car rolled end over end several times. Clauson’s car nearly came to a rest on its side when another sprint car slammed into Clauson’s roll cage in a violent crash that sent Clauson’s car airborne.
“It is with extreme sadness that we must accept this devastating news,” USAC CEO/President Kevin Miller said in a statement. “This is one of the darkest days in the history of the United States Auto Club. Not only have we lost one of our greatest USAC Champions, we have lost a true ambassador for all of motorsports. There is a tremendous hole in the hearts of our community today as we grieve his loss along with his family and friends.”
Clauson planned to marry Lauren Stewart, a former Miss Eldora Speedway, on Feb. 4, 2017, in Indianapolis. Their first date was at the Eldora awards banquet in January 2011.
In addition to his four USAC wins at Eldora, Clauson also qualified for the Kings Royal in 2015 (13th place) and 2016 (24th).
In 2004, Clauson earned Rookie of the Year honors at Lawrenceburg Speedway at the age of 14.
Among his many accomplishments, Clauson was a three-time USAC National Drivers champion and two-time National Sprint Car Series champion and two-time National Midget Series champion.
He qualified for the Indianapolis 500 in 2012, 2015 and the 100th running this past May. Clauson visited Dayton on a media tour to promote the Indy 500 in 2015.
“For me one of the coolest moments of my career was walking out for driver intros on race day (in 2012),” said Clauson during the visit. “For me, somebody who grew up around the speedway, there’s probably nothing that will ever top that.”
Clauson was the youngest driver to reach 100 USAC feature wins and one of six drivers to accomplish that feat. His 112 career USAC feature wins ranked him behind USAC Hall of Famers Rick Vogler, A.J. Foyt, Sleepy Tripp and Mel Kenyon.
This season Clauson was attempting to run 200 races in what he called the Chasing 200 Tour: Circular Insanity. He had 27 wins through 117 races in variety of cars including winged sprint cars, non-wing sprint cars, midgets, Silver Crown and the Indianapolis 500.
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