8/5/2016
Kyle Bellm
Bellm Begins Knoxville 360 Nationals Pursuit
Lonnie Wheatley, NIXA, Mo. (August 5, 2016) – Kyle Bellm and the Resource Asset Management Solutions (RAMS) No. 14k Sprint Car team are set to make their run for one of the crown jewels of 360-ci Sprint Car racing with tonight’s qualifying portion of Knoxville’s 360 Nationals in Knoxville, IA.
Even after spending several weeks racing closer to home rather than making the journey to the Northwest, Bellm and the PPG Automotive Finishes/Colorvision entry is still solidly entrenched in the top ten in Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour points after earning Rookie of the Year honors last season.
And going into the $15,000-to-win Knoxville weekend that concluded on Saturday night, Bellm and the team welcome VP Racing Fuels as a new marketing partner with the No. 14k.
This weekend will be Bellm’s first Knoxville laps of the year.
“We just need to get a good time and then get through our heat race,” Bellm explains. “Then we’ll go from there.”
Bellm comes off a weekend in which results weren’t particularly representative of the speed of the Schure Built Suspensions/Christian County Collision Repair machine.
“The results didn’t show on paper how fast we actually were,” Bellm says.
It was a weekend that included finishes of 13th and 16th in Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour competition along with a 13th place “test-n-tune” outing at Minnesota’s Jackson Motorplex.
The weekend started last Thursday at South Dakota’s Park Jefferson International Speedway, with Bellm posting a 13th place finish.
“It was one lane on the bottom, there wasn’t much you could do,” Bellm said after starting deep in the field.
Another 13th place result came the next night for Bellm at the Jackson Motorplex in the Bybee Lawn Care/Dynotech Racing Engines machine.
“We just took too long to get going,” Bellm said after gaining several positions in the late going. “It was a good tuneup for the Jackson Nationals as well as Knoxville, it was similar in being a big half-mile.”
The weekend wrapped up on Sunday night at the Badlands Motorsports Park near Sioux Falls with Bellm settling for 16th in the Schaeffer Oil/Prater Designs/Racinboys entry atop another rubbered up surface.
“I got pinched low at the start of the heat and never really recovered from that,” Bellm says. “We came from the ‘B’ and the car was good in the feature. We got a couple of positions and then got held up by a couple of cars racing side-by-side for several laps and then it laid rubber.”
Overall though, Bellm and crew have shown good speed in recent weeks and look to put to the test atop the famed ½-mile clay oval on the Marion County Fairgrounds beginning with Friday night’s Knoxville 360 Nationals qualifying action.
2016 Quick Stats: 31 races, 1 win, 11 top-fives, 13 top-tens.
Up Next:
Friday & Saturday – Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour at Knoxville (IA) 360 Nationals
Keep Track: Keep track of Kyle Bellm’s on-track action including schedule and results at http://www.kylebellm.com/, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KyleBellmRacing?fref=ts or on Twitter at @kylebellmracing.
If you would like Kyle Bellm Racing press releases e-mailed directly to you, send your e-mail address to Lonnie Wheatley at lonniewheatley@gmail.com.
Penning the recurring series of “The Wheatley Chronicles” articles on www.sprintcarmania.com, Lonnie Wheatley provides media, public relations and more for select tracks, drivers and events. For more information, Wheatley may be contacted at lonniewheatley@gmail.com.
Article Credit: Lonnie Wheatley
