Sprint Week

Sprint Week

Posted by Andretti Autosport Holding Company, Inc. on Jul 14th 2017

Indiana Sprint Week is always the most hectic and stressful part of the season, however it is always the most rewarding when you do well. ISW always kicks off at the Gas City I69 Speedway, but Mother Nature had other plans and it was postponed until Monday, so everything kicked off at the Kokomo Speedway on Saturday. Due to all the rain, Kokomo was not in its typical shape and we struggled a bit in qualifying, timing in at 17th quick. This would put us on the outside of the first heat for Indiana Sprint Week 2017. At the start, we jumped out to an early lead and were able to win the heat to transfer into the feature. That would line us up 15th in the feature and after passing some cars early, we struggled later in the race and ended up 18th. It wasn’t the best start to Sprint Week, but I was really looking forward to getting to Lawrenceburg the next night.

Night 2 would take place at the Lawrenceburg Speedway; I always enjoy going to the Burg and I was optimistic rolling through the gates. The draw would once again not play to our favor and we would be the 28th car out to qualify. We would fare much better in qualifying with an 11th place effort. This would line us up 4th in the heat and after a quick start we were able to grab the lead, but a couple mistakes by me would drop us back to 3rd in the heat but still good enough to transfer us into the feature. We picked up a couple spots at the start of the feature, but jumped the cushion about halfway through the race and that would cost us a couple positions. We ended up 10th, which was a solid run on a difficult track.

The final night of the first weekend would take place at Gas City with the rescheduled race from Friday taking place on Monday. Our pill drawing finally turned around and we pulled the #1 pill for qualifying. Unfortunately, a mistake by me coming to the white only allowed us to get one clean lap which was good enough for 15th overall. This lined us up 3rd in the heat and we were able to grab the lead early; unfortunately a bleeder line failed and we lost the lead with a couple laps to go, but a 2nd place finish would transfer us into the feature. Gas City was in good shape early for the feature, but the top ended up going away about halfway through and that hurt us. We were better when the track had multiple grooves, but after it blew off it was difficult to pass. We will spend the off time getting everything back together for the 2nd half of Sprint Week!