After a busy weekend in open wheel competition for the Fully Injected drivers and their teams, I took the time to ask a few of them for their opinions and perspectives relating to their own particular race weekends.
2010 Lernerville Speedway Track Champion and Pittsburgh native, Danny Holtgraver, was out on the road with the competitive All Star Circuit of Champions Sprint Car Series this past weekend in sprint car hotbed,central Pennsylvania. After a rough weekend with the All Stars in Posse country,failing to make both Friday and Saturday shows by one position, this is what young Danny Holtgraver had to say:
- “Well, we timed bad both nights and that put us behind the eight ball…but as the night continued, we kept getting faster and learned a lot about both tracks (Williams Grove and Lincoln Speedway’s)…we’ll take the good from it and just move on.”
Danny will have only a few days at the shop this week to prepare his car and team before they set sail for Ohio Speedweek; 8 races in 9 days- staring next Friday night at Attica Raceway Park in Attica, OH.
Fourth generation driver and Wampum, Pennsylvania native, Brandon Matus, spent his weekend traveling the local circuit in western Pennsylvania; competing at Lernerville Speedway and Mercer Raceway Park on Friday and Saturday evenings. Brandon, like his teammate Danny, also had a weekend that could have ended with a more positive outcome.
- “Friday I missed the setup,and Saturday, I was involved in a first turn melee…” quoted the disappointed ‘Wheelman’…”nothing much more to say.”
After pulling off the speedway on Friday night at Lernerville Speedway due to an ill handling car and unusual track conditions, Brandon was involved in a first turn incident on Saturday night at Mercer Raceway Park. Brandon still currently sits 3rd in the Lernerville Speedway points standings and just 10 points out of first place.
Scott Priester, a 25 year racing veteran and local western Pennsylvania competitor had a more of a positive result to his weekend. Competing at Lernerville Speedway on Friday evening in his own Metplas, #11- Scott won his heat and finished 6th in the 25 lap feature event. Saturday night, Scott would return to the familiar Martha Dionise #15 and rally from a 17th starting spot and finish 7th- resulting in his 2nd top 10 finish of the weekend.
- “It was a real encouraging weekend” quoted Scott – “Friday night we were fast and won our heat but over adjusted for the feature and was too tight; started 9th and finished 6th…didn’t really have a car that could challenge the front pack.”
Saturday night proved to be a big turn around for the Dionise #15. Bad luck and a little bit of “being in the wrong place at the wrong time” seemed to plague the Dionise team until Saturday evening…
- “We finally got the car where I was comfortable driving it…hopefully we can build on that!” After discussing his top 10 finish, Scott simply replied “We started 17th and finished 7th and we missed the big crash…that’s a good night compared to most of our Mercer outings.”
Check out more about the upcoming weekend in open wheel racing, a long with highlights of the previous weekend, in this week’s edition of ‘Monday Night Review’
Thanks for stopping by!