2/24/2015
Scotty Thiel
Tough Luck at East Bay
Scotty and the STM crew headed south last week to the East Bay Raceway Park in Tampa Florida for the 14th annual Ron Laney Memorial and the Lucas Oil ASCS National event. This was the third trip the team has taken down to East Bay and were hoping for some positive results. After getting disqualified for the nose wing being ½ too far forward when crossing the scales after a B-main victory Thursday night, that set the tune for the remaining portion of the weekends luck.
With a field of 67 sprint cars on hand it was sure to be a tough battle to make it into the final nights $10,000 to win A-main event. Scotty drew a 32 pill which set him to start fourth in the fourth heat race event. Passing points were crucial especially will that large of a field. The green flag flew for the heat race event and Scotty charged up into third right away. With hardly any passing happening this early in the night, Scotty settled for a third place position which would place him to start third in the first B-main event. The top two cars out of each B-main would be locked into the nights 25 lap A-main event. Scotty knew he had a good car so far in the night but needed to make sure to get locked into the show. The green flag came out for the first B-main of the night and he did not hesitate to move forward. He came up into the second position in the first lap and ran down the leader. With the halfway sign showing, Thiel began to gain ground on the leader. On lap eight, Thiel made the move for the lead going into turn three and never looked back and would go on to win the B-main. He had to go to the scales and passed on weight but when the National Tour tech official measured Scotty’s nose wing, it was ½” too far ahead and led to a disqualification. There was some contact made on a restart in the B-main event which may have caused the nose wing to get pushed around on the car but the rules were stated and Scotty would head back to the trailer with last place points.
After having last place points for the night, the team knew that they would have to make up ground on Friday night. Scotty drew a 47 pill which set him to start seventh in the heat race event. The green flag came out and the action started right away in turn one. Scotty used the top side of the track to make some ground up and moved into the fifth spot right away. A few laps later the field bunched up coming out of turn two and Scotty checked up for one second and lost some ground but later made it back up and charged into the fourth position. Moving up three positions helped greatly and set him to start on the front row of the B-main event. Again, only the top two cars would transfer to the main event. Scotty brought the field to green and charged to the lead. He held the lead for a few laps before bobbling in turn one and gave the lead up. He charged back around to the lead two laps later and maintained it for several laps. He started entering into lap traffic and took a new line but it cost him two spots and he was back into third. With only a few laps to go, Scotty tried charging forward but came up short by only a car length at the line to transfer into the main event.
Coming into Saturday night’s final event, Scotty was sitting 39th in overall points out of the 67 cars entered and it would place him to start 6th in the heat race event. Only the winners of each heat would transfer into the main event while the remaining cars would have to fight their way out of C and B mains. The field took the green and Scotty worked several different lines to work his way up to a fourth place finish. Passing was getting more and more difficult as the night went on but Scotty felt comfortable that the car would be fine for the B-main. He started in the eighth position and the top five cars would transfer out. The field took the green and bunched up hard in turn one. Scotty had to check up a little to avoid contact and cost him some ground. He charged his way back through the field but the car still wasn’t what he was needing. With only five laps to go, Thiel was back in ninth position and the car started to come around. He charged his way up to the seventh position but would be unable to make any more ground up as the checkered flag flew and only the top five cars moved on to the final event.
“It’s frustrating especially driving this far down here to not make the show. Thursday night set us back with the disqualification and points is the biggest deal here. With 67 cars, we knew it was going to be tough. We had a decent car all weekend long honestly but when you have to come from so far back and passing was as tough as ever it really does make it tough to get into the big show.”
Next up on the teams schedule is 410 racing. There are several potentials to the next event and could be as soon as the end of March. The team will finalize race cars and engines and see what they will be able to do before the IRA opener happens on April 18th at LaSalle Speedway. Keep up to date at www.scottythiel.com or on their Facebook page, www.facebook.com/ScottThielMotorsports.
Scott Thiel Motorsports would like to thank all of their marketing partners that were on board for this event.
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Article Credit: SixFour Promotions
Submitted By: Scotty Thiel
