Lonnie Wheatley, CLUTE, Texas (August 6, 2014) – Hopes were high for Aaron Reutzel and the BC Fundz/Wren Motorsports No. 87 Triple-X team going into this past weekend’s 24th Annual Knoxville 360 Nationals.
But, some hot laps issues followed by miscommunications among race officials effectively derailed those hopes.
“There was a really bad vibration in hot laps so I just pulled in, not knowing exactly what it was,” Reutzel explained of Thursday night’s hot lap session.
“We asked an official if we could qualify the next night, he radioed upstairs and they said we could,” Reutzel says.
With that in mind, Reutzel and crew member Ryan Beechler diagnosed the problem as a broken U-joint in the driveline. Then the bad news came an hour or so later.
“An official came up to us and said they made a mistake, that we couldn’t qualify the next night,” Reutzel said. “We’d already missed qualifying and the heat race and it was too late to get ready for the B, it killed our whole nationals.”
Without making a single lap, Reutzel was mired deep in a Saturday “E” Main among the 102-car field. Reutzel advanced from “E” to “D” aboard the Scott Baylor Racing Engines/Basic One Services machine where he advanced from 22th to 15th to finish his Nationals effort.
“We were just making some laps, there was really no chance of getting to the feature from there,” Reutzel said.
Monday’s outing at Oskaloosa’s Front Row Challenge at Southern Iowa Speedway wasn’t much better for the No. 87 team.
After slipping from third to fourth in a loaded heat race, Reutzel missed the feature cut in “B” Main action, commenting that, “The car just wasn’t working for some reason.”
Shaking off the effects of Iowa, Reutzel and the Momentum Racing Suspensions/Danny Sander Construction/ButlerBuilt team are already prepping for upcoming events.
“There’s something not right so we’re going to go through the entire car and figure out where the problem is,” Reutzel explains. “It’s definitely not working like it was the first half of the year, so we’re going to spend the rest of this week going through it piece by piece.”
With an eye on a 2015 Knoxville Nationals Rookie of the Year effort, Reutzel will keep watch on Nationals action this week while fine tuning the Lone Star Hydro Maintenance/Wright Way Logistics machine.
Next week’s racing action includes a wingless outing in the opening leg of the USAC Southwest Sprint Cars Freedom Tour on Wednesday night at Lawton Speedway before resuming Lucas Oil ASCS National action atop the Salina Highbanks Speedway in Salina, OK, on Saturday.
2014 Quick Stats: 43 races, 6 “A” Main wins, 21 top-fives, 30 top-tens.
Up Next: USAC Southwest Freedom Tour at Lawton Speedway in Lawton, OK, on Wednesday, 13, and Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour at Salina Highbanks Speedway in Salina, OK, on Saturday, August 16.
Keep Track: Keep track of Aaron Reutzel’s on-track action including schedule and results at http://www.aaronreutzelracing.com/, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Aaron-Reutzel-Racing/117666254913127 or on Twitter at @AaronReutzel. You can also e-mail Aaron at aaronreutzel@yahoo.com.
If you would like Aaron Reutzel 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 racinboys.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.
- Lonnie Wheatley on Aug 06, 2014
- Article Date: 8/6/2014 by Lonnie Wheatley