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Bashed at Bristol... | More >> | Recap Archives: 2005 | 2004 | 2003

Start - 18th | Competitors - 28| High - 1st | Low - 21st | Finish - 13th | analyzer report
Race Report - April 5th, 2005

Thunder Valley, that is the press's name for Bristol Motor Speedway. It's a half mile concrete oval shoved into a modern day coliseum. For those in attendance, there's nothing like the experience of a race at Bristol. The deafining roar, the speed, and the excitement are like no other event that I can think of.

Cool temperatures greeted the competitors this week as the cry in the garage area for many of the teams was loose, loose, loose. All fears of multiple cars spinning up off the corner were put to rest however as each competitor walked on egg shells for the first couple of laps and then ran hard nosed - typical Bristol.

Typical Bristol - that's how you'd describe this springs event. Almost a dozen cautions and plenty of rumpled fenders were on display after the race came to a close. Our AMSOIL driver seemed to be missing something as the car was a tick slower then everyone else all weekend. That's not to say that the ECI Express wasn't competitive, as at Bristol, patience usually moves you forward, not speed.

Leading a lap early after staying out, all was going ok until warp contact on lap 130 with Gerry Gougen sent the AMSOIL Chevy spinning hard into the outside and then inside retaining barriers. Several cars were close behind and numerous cars made contact in the ensuing melee. The AMSOIL Chevy was able to clear the crash without loosing a lap but not without engine and considerable body damage. Although the crew tried their best, Kevinw as off the pace and this meant that the rest of the night was going to be spent riding it out to the finish.

Kevin gave all he could and tried to remain on the lead lap but several late race green flag stretches took their toll and a lap was lost to the leader somewhere near the three-quarter stage of the race.

Kevin ran as hard as he could to the finish and pulled his battered car across the line in 13th - an appropriate number to symbolize the race at completion.

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Kevin Inglin, the pilot of the AMSOIL Chevy had this to say after the run:

"We were hoping for better but when you go short track racing you have to know that sometimes the bear eats you... The temperatures kind of threw us for a loop as we just couldn't get the car to hook up off the corner. The car was loose and I'm not know for going fast when the setup is on the loose side. Truth-be-told, I'm more of the pushing like a dump truck kind of guy myself. I'll have to talk to my crew chief Ken Duit to see what he can do about tightening us up next time we go back there.

I've got to take a moment to offer up an apology to the 97 bunch. I followed Shawn for quite a few laps and he pushed up in that one corner and I stuck my nose in there. I was only trying to let the car float in and didn't mean to turn him around. Unfortunately it's about the worse spot you could clip someone. If you could reach out a hand, you could probably push hard enough to make someone go around at that stage of the turn. Hopefully Shawn knows we didn't mean it and he'll chalk it up as typical Bristol Racing.

We're going to Martinsville next week. It's a love-hate relationship there as we haven't done well there as of late but a couple of years ago we won a couple of em' there. We'll get our game face on and see if we can get outta there with a decent finish. Here's to hoping that our early appearances during short track season don't end up a bust.

Until next week... "