Brian Brown and the Casey’s General Stores/FVP #21 team will be heading for Eldora Speedway near Rossburg, Ohio for this weekend’s King’s Royal festivities. The team is looking forward to it after sitting on the front row of last year’s event and finishing with a top five despite some serious issues with the car. The event will run Thursday, Friday, and conclude Saturday with the $50,000 to win finale. Last weekend, the Grain Valley, Missouri driver chalked up a top ten with the World of Outlaws at the FVP Platinum Battery Showdown at Cedar Lake Speedway near New Richmond, Wisconsin.
You timed in 21st quick Friday night at Cedar Lake.
Our qualifying is off just a little bit. When you’re off, it’s difficult to catch up with the Outlaws. Some of that had to do with our draw. Cedar Lake (track) seems to fall off more than most. We drew a 50 and a 51 to qualify last weekend. You are hoping for the 15th quick range really when you come out late there. They always hot lap in the daylight up there around 6. It provides awesome racing, but if you have a late number it’s tough.
You managed to battle back in your heat.
We were able to take advantage of the Outlaw format when we went from sixth to fourth in our heat. That moved us up from starting 24th to 13th. People want to complain about everything these days, but I think the Outlaws got that part of their format correct, when you’re racing for your position in the feature in the heat.
You made steady progress forward in the feature.
We were able to move up to ninth. I really felt at the end of the race, we had a top five caliber car. We just didn’t have the track position at that point in the night. We had passed (Tim) Kaeding for eighth at one time, and Sides was right there. With (crew chief) Chad (Morgan) at a wedding…it was nice to get a top ten without our leader there. I thought Friday was a pretty solid night.
You timed in a familiar spot (22nd quick) for Saturday’s finale. Again, you battled back.
We went from sixth to fifth in the heat, and that put us starting 18th in the A. We were able to get up to twelfth at one time and ended up 13th.
It was another event that FVP was a big part of.
Overall, it was a great event. We were able to host 200 FVP employees and customers Saturday, and it’s always good to meet with them. We just didn’t finish quite as high as we were hoping. Cedar Lake has always been feast or famine for us. We’ve had chances to win, and we’ve finished at the back. Every time we go, we learn something different. We’ll try again next year.
You have to be excited about the King’s Royal.
We’ve had some success there in the past. Last year, we ran well there, especially on Saturday night. We’re just looking forward to it. If you qualify well and do your job, you should be in the hunt every night.
- administrator on Jul 10, 2017
- Article Date: 7/10/2017