4/30/2011
Tyler Groenendyk
Knoxville Opening Night
Opening Night and my first sprint car race are now in the books after an exciting night of racing at the famed Knoxville Raceway. Twenty Seven 360’s signed in for the night’s action. After a 21st place qualifying effort we earned a 7th place starting position in the 3rd 360 heat race. Finishing in 5th position kept us one spot away from the feature. Once again placing us 7th on the starting grid for the b feature, we managed only to gain one position, leaving us once again one spot away from the feature. We had been fighting a fueling issue, creating an over fueled motor to stubble on starts and restarts. This was diagnosed after our b-main as a return bypass had been installed backwards on the return fuel line. Forcing all of the fuel into the motor and allowing none to return back to the tank. Next, we caught our biggest break of the night as Wayne Johnson suffered power steering issues and scratched from the feature, allowing us to tag the tail as the first alternate. Starting from the 20th position, I managed to gain four positions for a final result of 16th.
I learned a lot as driver throughout the night of racing and felt I improved every time we rolled onto the track. The team and I are now looking forward to next week, as I now have some racing experience under my belt and believe we have all the little bugs worked out of the racecar. We are looking for a more solid qualifying effort that will put us in the invert and allow a better heat race starting position. This with our weekly goal in mind, of our first top ten finish of the year. We are currently in 19th position in points and will strive to continue to climb closer to the top in the weeks to come.
I once again can’t express my thanks enough for all of you who are supporting our race team this year. I feel that are great things just beyond the horizon, and I am extremely blessed to have the opportunity to work with each and every one of you. Without all of your support our success wouldn’t be possible and we are privileged to say you are an important part in all of our accomplishments!
