Mullen Scores Win Number Two And Governor’s Cup Runner-Up Honors
GRAND FORKS, N.D. (August 5, 2020) – Six days after his first Buffalo Wild Wings NOSA Sprint Car feature victory, Brendan Mullen set his sights on collecting his second win in the CL Linfoot / Bergstrom Electric No. 11M. He did just that, winning the Governor’s Cup opener at Dacotah Speedway in Mandan, N.D., and ending the weekend as the event’s overall runner-up.
The weekend started as the previous one ended, with Mullen as the winner of his heat, from the sixth starting spot. That gave him the most passing points after heat race competition. Sometimes that’s not the best place to be, and it wasn’t on this night, as the invert was eight, handing Mullen the eighth starting spot in the main event.
Mullen’s first start wasn’t to his liking, as he lost a couple of spots, but the start was washed out due to the event’s only caution.
Mullen made short work of regrouping from the initial start, however, as he moved up to the fourth position by the completion of the fifth lap. The next five laps proved successful, as he made it past Jordan Adams on lap six, and both Bob Martin, and early leader Zach Omdahl on lap nine to take the lead.
The remainder of the race went caution-free, as Mullen worked traffic to eventually score the win by over three seconds.
“My initial start was very, very poor, and I think I lost two or three spots before that yellow came out.” Mullen said post-race. “On the second initial start, I got a couple of cars around the top side of the track. Just started focusing on making good laps, and then caught the leaders as they were battling each other, and managed to get them both coming out of turn four. From then on it was just making good laps, and getting by lapped cars at the opportune moment.”
On his second win in less than a week, Mullen said he felt, “Really, really good, the whole season being close, it feels good to start to get some wins.”
The second night, Mullen raced from fourth to second, finishing behind his teammate Wade Nygaard in their heat race, scoring enough points to earn the fourth starting spot in the main event.
Mullen passed series point leader, Jade Hastings, on the fifth lap then passed early leader, Blake Egeland, for second on lap nine.
Mullen then swapped second and third with Nygaard three times in the next seven laps before the final caution with eight circuits remaining.
Mullen finished third in the race and as the overall runner-up of the weekend.
Mullen will be back in action with the NOSA Sprints on Thursday night at Norman County Raceway in Ada, Minn. and on Friday night at River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks. Time trials are at 6:30pm with racing at 7:00pm.
Latest Results:
July 31st: Dacotah Speedway
Heat: 1st (started 8th)
Feature: 1st (8th)
August 1st: Dacotah Speedway
Heat: 2nd (4th)
Feature: 3rd (4th)
Up Next:
August 6: Norman County Raceway – NOSA Sprints
August 7: River Cities Speedway – NOSA Sprints
Brendan and the entire Mullen Motorsports team would like to thank all their sponsors for their support!
Bergstrom Electric
Bosh Enterprises
Forks Finest Auto Body
2020 Stats:
Races: 19
Wins: 3
Heat Wins: 5
Top Fives: 7
Top Tens: 13
Photo by Speedway Shots
