Lonnie Wheatley, CLUTE, Texas (May 12, 2016) – Five races at four different tracks in three different cars. It was definitely a busy week for Aaron Reutzel.
Reutzel was painfully close to notching at least a win or two along the way, including his first career World of Outlaws triumph. Instead, four top-fives and no finish lower than seventh wrapped up a busy week of action for the reigning Lucas Oil ASCS National champion.
“We had good speed every time out, we really should have got a couple of wins out of it,” Reutzel said. “We’ll just stay after it and hopefully the wins will come.”
Action on the ASCS National Tour continues this weekend with two nights of competition at Fort Worth’s Texas Motor Speedway.
“We’ve always been quick there but haven’t had the greatest of luck,” Reutzel said of the Texas Motor Speedway clay oval. “Hopefully we can shake that luck and get our first National win of the year."
Last week’s set of five races began with Reutzel and the Shark-powered Dissolvalloy Downhole Revolution/BC Fundz No. 87 Triple-X Sprint Car team in World of Outlaws competition at Jacksonville Speedway in Illinois.
After setting second quick time in qualifying, Reutzel raced into the Dash with a runner-up finish in his heat race and then started front row outside in the feature after a runner-up Dash finish.
Reutzel chased down early leader Joey Saldana for the point a dozen laps in and led eight rounds before surrendering the lead. Reutzel ultimately finished fifth in the Wren Motorsports/Momentum Racing Suspensions entry for his top WoO finish of the year.
“Honestly, the car was excellent,” Reutzel commented. “That we actually ran Joey down for the lead and then ended up finishing fifth, that was disappointing.”
Reutzel reflected on the strong run. “We took the lead and the track changed again. The guys behind me were able to search around and find a better way to get around. When we got into traffic, they caught me. We ran fifth with the World of Outlaws though, so we can’t really complain.”
From there, ASCS National Tour action picked back up at Kansas City’s Lakeside Speedway, where Reutzel ran down the early leaders before slipping back to seventh over the closing laps with a damaged nose wing on the Danny Sander Construction/ButlerBuilt machine.
“We had a bad fast car from the word go,” Reutzel said of the Wright Way Logistics/Walker Performance Filtration Sprint Car at Lakeside. “I got a little impatient in traffic and knocked the nose wing down, we just had to hang on from there.”
Thursday’s Lakeside card also marked Reutzel’s second non-wing Sprint Car outing of the year as he climbed into a J.D. Black entry for WAR competition. Reutzel made the most of it, winning his heat race and then working the low side of the ½-mile to claim third in the feature event.
“We had a little bit of brake problems in the feature, I was a little timid to get up there and bang the fence with no brakes,” Reutzel said. “I thought we could make the bottom work but we were just a little too loose, still it was a successful run.”
With Lakeside in the books, Reutzel hit the road right away for the 600-plus mile journey deep into the heart of Texas for two nights of ASCS Gulf South Region competition in Scottie McDonald’s No. 88 entry.
Reutzel had another fast ride only to run afoul of lapped traffic while contending for the lead in Friday’s feature at Waco’s Heart O’ Texas Speedway.
“We started eighth and were up to second by the tenth lap,” Reutzel recalls. Challenging Channin Tankersley for the lead, a lapped car became a problem. “A lapped car changed lines at the last second, I hit the brakes, biked it and ran off the track.”
Relegated to the tail of the field with just eight laps to go, Reutzel sliced through the field from 18th to salvage an impressive fifth-place finish.
The frenetic weekend wrapped up Saturday night at Beaumont’s Golden Triangle Raceway Park, where lapped traffic once again negated a likely win.
“Scottie gave us another great car, we should have won,” Reutzel says.
One lapped car took that one away though.
“We started out front and were leading every lap,” Reutzel recalls. “There was one lapped car that we lapped three times. The second time he ran us all the way to the infield. The third time, he was changing lines again and did pretty much the same thing, he slowed us down enough to let Channin get by.”
Knocking on the door for some victories, Reutzel hopes to capture a pair this weekend as the ASCS National Tour takes to Texas Motor Speedway for two nights.
2016 Quick Stats: 30 races, 2 wins, 9 top-fives, 15 top-tens.
Up Next: Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour competition on Friday and Saturday at Fort Worth’s Texas Motor Speedway.
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 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.
- administrator on May 12, 2016
- Article Date: 5/12/2016 by Lonnie Wheatley