(Photo by Jones Sports Media)
Inside Line Promotions – LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Oct. 16, 2017) – It took a little longer than he expected, but Sammy Swindell has returned to true form.
Swindell won all three times he hit the track during his preliminary night before he led all 40 laps during the 30th annual COMP Cams Short Track Nationals presented by Hoosier Tires finale last weekend at I-30 Speedway. The two wins on the weekend give him five victories in his last six races and six triumphs in 10 races during an eight-week span.
“We lost our good motor the first of the year,” he said. “We had another one that wasn’t quite as good. We kept trying to make changes. It made a struggle for a little bit. That and everywhere we went the draw was bad and we started at the back. It took us a bit to figure out where we were at and what we needed and where we needed to go. We’ve been building on that since Knoxville (in August). We’re pretty much where we should have been after last year. Now it seems like everything is going in the right direction. We’ve been getting good draws and haven’t had issues and aren’t getting involved in things on the race track.”
Last weekend was smooth sailing for Swindell and car owner A.G. Rains, who also won the Short Track Nationals crown together last year. For Swindell, it marked his fifth career event title, which makes him the first driver to win the Short Track Nationals five times.
The action began on Thursday with Swindell winning an ASCS Mid-South Region heat race from the pole, advancing from third to win a qualifier and capturing the main event after starting on the outside of the front row.
“I didn’t have to run hard, just hard enough to do what we needed to do,” he said. “I was able to run conservative and still be quick enough to win. We felt pretty confident. We got into traffic and it was about not getting into trouble. There were a few times it was pretty close and I had to stop.
“Every time we hit the track we won. That put us in a good spot to get locked in for Saturday. That definitely made the rest of the weekend easier. Then all we had to do was prepare for that dash and the feature.”
Swindell’s victory on Thursday locked him into the dash on Saturday. A fourth-place result in the dash lined him up on the outside of the second row for the 40-lap, $15,000-to-win A Main.
“I had a really good start,” he said. “I could tell (Tim) Crawley was going to go to the top. I was going to go through the middle and get one. (Aaron) Reutzel started to slide across. That blocked Tim and the best part of the track was the bottom coming off there. It was like, ‘Thanks a lot for giving me this opportunity to take the lead right away.’ I’d rather have them chase me than me chase them. The car was good enough I could run anywhere.”
Swindell took the lead on the opening lap and never looked back as he scored his eighth victory of the season.
QUICK RESULTS –
Oct. 12 – I-30 Speedway in Little Rock, Ark. – Heat race: 1 (1); Qualifier: 1 (3); Feature: 1 (2).
Oct. 14 – I-30 Speedway in Little Rock, Ark. – Dash: 4 (4); Feature: 1 (4).
SEASON STATS –
41 races, 8 wins, 16 top fives, 25 top 10s, 27 top 15s, 31 top 20s
UP NEXT –
TBD
MEDIA LINKS –
Website: http://www.SammySwindell1.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/1sam91
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“I’ve run some of the High Performance Lubricants products and the product we put in the rear end and the steering made it run cooler,” Swindell said. “We did a bunch of oil analysis before and after and found some great things using High Performance Lubricants.”
Swindell would also like to thank John Christner Trucking, Acme Graphix & Design, High Performance Lubricants, Brown & Miller Racing Solutions, Simpson Race Products, Rossie Feed & Grain, CP Pistons, FK Rod Ends, Sweet Manufacturing, Schoenfeld Headers, MyRacePass and Inside Line Promotions 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 Oct 16, 2017
- Article Date: 10/16/2017 by Inside Line Promotions