(Photo by Malcolm White Photography)
Inside Line Promotions – ELMA, Wash. (May 10, 2015) – Saturday night was chalked up as a learning experience for Henry Van Dam, whose night ended in a crash at Grays Harbor Raceway.
“It was one of those nights where you learned what not to do,” he said. “Sometimes you need those nights.”
Van Dam opened the event by qualifying 19th quickest.
“I just made a big mistake,” he said. “I completely jumped the cushion going into turn three. It was all dry and dusty above the cushion. I pretty much had to park it not to hit the wall.”
That lined him up in the final starting position of a heat race.
“It was right around the bottom,” he said. “I did what I could to pick people off. The car was all right. Being that we qualified so bad I did some stuff I normally wouldn’t do (to the setup) because I knew I wasn’t going to start up front.”
Van Dam advanced from seventh to third place in the heat race, which locked him into the 15th starting position for the 25-lap main event.
“I drove up to about eighth place,” he said. “We just weren’t able to move around like I wanted to. Being in dirty air, the car was a handful to hang on to. On a restart a couple of guys got together ahead of us and we got into it, knocking our front end out.”
Van Dam was unable to restart the race and was credited with a 17th-place result.
“It was frustrating, but we’ll take some positive out of the night,” he said. “We’ll go into our next race taking the lessons we learned on Saturday.”
Van Dam will be off this weekend before competing on May 24 at Cottage Grove Speedway in Cottage Grove, Ore., with the Western Sprint Tour.
QUICK RESULTS –
May 9 – Grays Harbor Raceway in Elma, Wash. – Qualifying: 19; Heat race: 3 (7); Feature: 17 (15).
SEASON STATS –
11 races, 0 wins, 2 top fives, 6 top 10s, 7 top 15s, 9 top 20s
UP NEXT –
May 24 at Cottage Grove Speedway in Cottage Grove, Ore., with the Western Sprint Tour
MEDIA LINKS –
Website: http://www.HenryVanDam.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VanDamRacing
APPAREL –
Van Dam has t-shirts available for sale at his race trailer and at Enumclaw Xpress Lube.
SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT – Johansen Excavating
Based in Buckley, Wash., Johansen Excavating specializes in civil construction. For more information, visit http://www.JohansenExcavating.com.
“Johansen Excavating has been a partner for the past few years,” Van Dam said. “They’ve been a great sponsor, but have been even better friends.”
Van Dam would also like to thank Kovash Logging, Enumclaw Xpress Lube, Les Schwab Tire of Enumclaw, Factory Kahne, Clems Enumclaw Powersports, A.R.T. Speed Equipment, Van Dam Dairy, Village Green Resort, D&L Equipment Repair, Zender Equipment, Big Bob’s Flooring Outlet, Bob and Joan Shumway, Kellan and Kelsey Hall, Foothills Auto Supply, American Powder Coating, Pete Vos, Char’s Barber Shop, Wesmar Race Engines, SpeedMart, Van Dam Farms and Rich Van Dam Dairy for their continued support.
INSIDE LINE PROMOTIONS –
Inside Line Promotions specializes in affordable public relations and media management for motor sports drivers, teams, sponsors, tracks, series, events, organizations and manufacturers. ILP Founder Shawn Miller leverages professional journalism with new media technologies and social networking to improve your exposure and the return on investment for your sponsors.
To meet the media relations needs of your program by joining Team ILP, contact Shawn at 541-510-3663 or Shawn@InsideLinePromotions.com. For more information on Inside Line Promotions, visit http://www.InsideLinePromotions.com.
- Shawn Miller on May 10, 2015
- Article Date: 5/10/2015 by Inside Line Promotions