The 10th Anniversary Moser Engineering Spring Fling Million presented by OPTIMA Batteries brought the best bracket racers in the world to the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. There were 384 entries for the main event on Friday, which led to a record-setting $450,000 payout. When the dust settled, Cooper Chun reigned supreme in Las Vegas.
The goal for every racer who bought an entry to the Spring Fling Million was to make it to the “split” and get their part of the big money. After some tough rounds of racing Steve Kelley, Brian McGinnis, Nathan Jones, Chad Sandlin, Josh Pickett, Nacho Rivera, Joey Moore, Ryan Barnes, Chris Sons, KJ Desa, Mikey Bloomfield Jr., Mikel McQueen, Chris Reynolds, Shane Molinari, Jacob Stolworthy, Cooper Chun, Scott Hess, and Cory Gulitti made the cut.
In the round of nine, Moore went two-thousandths red as Jones beat the tree down with a .005 green light. Pickett cut a .011 light and took .015 at the stripe to defeat McGinnis. Chun was able to get the better of Bloomfield by just .008. Reynolds used a solid reaction time advantage to turn on a win light over Gulitti. Barnes used his bye run as a tune up and laid down a .018 package.
Things got even tighter during the quarter-finals. Jones and Pickett both cut nearly identical lights, but at the top end, Jones broke out by just .009, handing the win to Pickett. Barnes used a .006 reaction time to beat Reynolds. Chun went .003 red and just three thousandths under his dial during a bye run.
The pressure was on during the semi-final round. Chun didn’t flinch and took .007 at the stripe, as he ran dead-on seven to beat Barnes. Picket turned on the red light by .005 on his bye run to the finals. This would be Picket’s first final round of the Spring Fling, while Chun had already been to one a year before on the 30K day.
In the final, just three-thousandths separated Chun and Picket on the tree, but Chun prevailed after taking just .005 at the stripe. Chun was an absolute beast on the tree during his Fling run with a .006 average reaction time. At just 21 years old, Chun also became the youngest person ever to win the Spring Fling.
