What strategy would you take for the 602 Sportsman Grand Nationals at Bridgeport Motorsports Park? Race for the win or finish third for $10,000?
Veteran racer Frank Cozze hatched the idea.
“No [promoter] tries anything different,” Cozze said. “I raced and tried different stuff my whole career — 95% of what I tried was a failure. However, what went right helped me win races. So, I decided to try something off the wall.”
Cozze bounced the idea of members of the media. Then he pitched it to Bridgeport promoter Doug Rose.
“How about a $10,000 not to win? How about paying third place the big money?” Cozze said. “Everyone’s first response was ‘not good.’ Within five minutes, everyone asked the question ‘what will happen at the end of the race?’ That’s exactly the response I wanted.”
Cozze got Rose on board and lined up sponsors for the race — the biggest being Harry’s U-Pull It. Cozze later added a $1,000 bonus for the driver being third midway through the race “so everyone could find out what to do,” he said.
Steve Davis would earn the $10K by finishing third.
“I went out to win,” Davis, of Cream Ridge, New Jersey, said. “I watched everyone else’s tires under caution[and] saw tires getting worn down, and I didn’t want to burn mine off. So, in the last 50 laps I paced — I shuffled positions from third to fifth.”
With three laps to go, the caution flew. The field lined up single file, with Davis in fifth, Steve Kemery fourth and Ethan Bill third.
“It was Ethan Bill’s $10,000 to lose at that point,” Davis said. “When Kemery shot up to the top, it opened up the lane on the bottom, and I rolled up underneath and took third,” Davis said. “Looking back, I would say my strategy was that if I wasn’t going to win, my next best option was third.”
When Davis stood next to the race winner, Joe Toth, Davis whispered to him, “I’d rather be holding this big cardboard check than that checkered flag.”
“I raced hard for 20 laps, then tried to save the equipment — so I rode in second,” Toth, of Upper Makefield Township, Pennsylvania, said. “I remember thinking that hopefully someone would pass me, but no one did.”
So Toth changed his mind.
“I decided it would be more of a challenge to try finish third than go for the win,” Toth said. “I began thinking that the battle for third would become sketchy, and I didn’t want any part of that.”
Toth got $3,000 for the win at Bridgeport Motorsports Park. Davis went home with $11,000, thanks to the halfway bonus for running third.
“I talked to a lot of drivers, and the vast majority of them said they would go for the win,” Cozze said. “I think the race was a success. We got 30 cars, but I had hoped for many more. Most people liked the idea. The race will happen again in October. The format will be different. I can tell you it will be a 60-lap race for $7,000 to win, so far.”
Outside Groove Note of Transparency: Corrected who said what in victory lane (2026-03-26).
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
