Second Devils Lake victory; four top tens on four race stretch for Mullen
GRAND FORKS, N.D. (July 14, 2021) – Another successful week is in the books for Brendan Mullen and the Native Nations Cannabis team, winning his third feature of the year on Saturday night at the Devils Lake Speedway, and scoring his first Huset’s Speedway top ten.
The four race swing started Thursday night at the River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks with night one of the Wayne Anderson Cup.
Mullen rebounded from a 14th place finish in time trials to score a place in the redraw with a second place finish from fifth in his heat race.
Mullen drew the eighth starting spot for the first 30 lap feature of the week, but didn’t start his charge forward until the first ten laps were complete.
From there, Mullen moved up to sixth, where he remained until his final charge in the last ten laps which saw him use a late restart to make four passes to finish as the runner-up.
Mullen started night two of the Anderson Cup as the sixth fastest in time trials, and third in his heat.
Starting tenth in the final 30 lapper of the week, Mullen made his way forward throughout the race, while going three-wide for position on a number of occasions throughout the first half of the race.
Running inside the top five from lap nine on, Brendan continued to move forward passing Lee Grosz on the bottom for fourth. Mullen improved to third on lap 17, and reeled in both Austin Pierce and Mark Dobmeier late in the race, finishing second for the second straight night.
On Saturday night, the 11M crew headed west to the Devils Lake Speedway near Doyon, ND, where they entered the night as the most recent winners at the high-banked one-third mile oval.
After a pair of cautions and a red with seven laps in the books to start the feature, Mullen moved from seventh to pass his teammate Wade Nygaard for a podium spot. From there, he moved past Tom Egeland for second.
After swapping the lead with Riley Goodno, Mullen used the bottom on the final restart to take the lead and continued on to win his second feature at Devils Lake in 2021.
“When I was in fourth, I really liked it when [Goodno] took the outside line so I could get a jump off the inside,” Mullen said post race. “[Goodno] was picking the top, picking the bottom, picking the top. And finally, he picked the top which was perfect for me to get a good jump off the bottom and slide through and take it away from there. My first ever Sprint Car win came here, and me and Todd [Slocum] have a really good game plan for when we come here, and it’s always fun to come in with some confidence, and know that if everything goes right you’re gonna have a great result.”
Mullen mentioned after the Devils Lake win that a top ten at Huset’s was his next goal, and he got that chance at the fourth and final race of the weekend at Huset’s.
Qualifying tenth quick, Mullen just missed the redraw, running a very competitive race with eventual winner Justin Henderson.
Slipping back to as low as 13th from his ninth starting spot in the 25 lap main event, Mullen climbed back to eleventh with 8 to go, and passed Dusty Zomer on the final lap to score his first career Huset’s Speedway top ten.
This week, Mullen and the 11M crew will run River Cities on Friday and Huset’s again on Sunday.
Thanks to all of our sponsors for their continued support!
Forks Finest Auto Body
Northland Custom Woodworking
Bosh Enterprises
2021 Stats:
Races: 30
Wins: 3
Top Fives: 10
Top Tens: 18
Photo by Speedway Shots
