It’s always difficult to start the season on a new track and we didn’t expect the conditions. It had been raining for two days and the track seemed to retain moisture as the nights progressed. The track conditions made it more difficult to maneuver, so there was little passing action going on.
On Friday we qualified at 14 and started the heat race up front, but the car wasn’t working well for Tyler, and we fell back to a non-transfer position. We decided to switch cars for the B-Main, which worked in our favor and got us transferred to the Feature. We made some changes to the car to try to compensate for the difficult track conditions, but the car still seemed to be too tight in the feature. Add in very little passing action we were unable to progress. We ended up finishing 13th and was awarded the Wilwood Disc Brakes 13th place finisher.
Saturday brought the decision to run the back-up car and we ended up qualifying 15th for the Feature. Tyler seemed to like the car better and led the heat race until he got passed and finished the heat race second. The car needed to be tighter for the feature and the track still seemed to be retaining moisture and again, there wasn’t much passing going on and we ended up finishing the race 13th.
Tyler stated “Tough first weekend for us. The new car gremlin got us both nights. Although it was a tough weekend and we didn’t get the results we wanted, we made it through with everything intact and can’t wait to get to Lawrenceburg in April.”
“We are now focusing on the next race April 1st. We are hoping we got all the bugs worked out of the cars in FL and looking forward to a win.” – Crew Chief, Mark Shambarger
Thursday February 23rd - rained out
Friday February 24th - qualified 14th and finished 13th.
Saturday February 25th - qualified 15th and finished 13th.
USAC Points- 14th
