On raceday, Austin went out in an early practice just to make sure nothing had changed. It was soon made clear that nothing had changed, as Austin turned some of the quickest lap times of the day. It seemed, though, that the car took about 6-8 laps to really "come in." The car would lack grip at the beginning stages of the run, then as soon as it came in, it really handled good. In the second practice, the car handled totally different, and was about a half second slower...for no reason at all, because no adjustments were made in between practices. When one of the crew members, Ronnie, pulled off the right-front tire, he saw that a major component of the sway bar had broken. Austin's dad found somebody to lend him a welder and quickly got to work fixing the broken piece. After about 45 minutes of hard work, the car was ready to hit the track again. Austin went right back to turning the same quick lap times he had been running in the first practice and pulled it in, feeling confident about their chances of earning a good qualifying position.
During qualifying, all the cars picked up about 2 tenths of a second from the time they ran in practice. Austin went out and ran exactly the same lap time he had been running in practice, which wasn't such a competitive time anymore. Austin ended up qualifying in the 13th position out of 18 cars. “I was really disappointed in my qualifying effort, but I knew we’d be there in the long run because the car just gets better and better”
Charlotte County Speedway is a very small and flat track, which makes it tough to pass, and causes a lot of wrecks, making it a challenge to advance positions during the 75 lap race. At the start of the race, Austin passed 2 cars putting him in 11th. Then over the next 15 laps, Austin stayed in line and let the cars ahead of him burn up their tires. During the run, Austin caught the end of a long single file pack of cars pretty quickly. One of the cars went high, and Austin pulled low to pass him. The other car chopped down on Austin, which spun the other car and caused a yellow flag. Austin found himself already inside the top 10. As the racing went on, Austin continued to pass cars, and do a great job avoiding wrecks. “It felt like a video game a couple times. Once cars stared crashing, everything went into slow motion. I have to give some credit to the “Higrip Wreckers” server I sometimes play on, which helps me with my wreck avoiding skills.” At the half way mark, Austin found himself riding in 6th position, and was starting to sniff a top 5. As the race wore on, Austin avoided one more spin in front of him, and passed another car to put him in 4th place. The last 10 laps of the race probably took 30 minutes to finish, because many cars in the back of the pack kept wrecking. On the last lap, the 3rd place car checked up to avoid wrecking 2nd place, and so Austin had to check up. The 5th place car tried to check up but ended up tapping Austin's rear bumper, which in turn pushed him into the 3rd place car, and spun him out. Austin was able to get by the spinning car and finish 4th. Compared to most of the other cars, Austin's car looked unscathed, as he was only involved in very minor incidents. It was a great effort by the whole AK motorsports team. Austin would like to give a special thanks to Wayne Anderson for setting up the car and giving him an opportunity to be competitive.
UNOFFICIAL RESULTS
Late model 75
1. 36P Gary Padulla
2. 8 Bobby Shelton - Delray Beach
3. 59 Dustin Dunn
4. 11k Austin Kirkpatrick - Ocala
5. 97 Patrick Staropoli - Plantation
6. 47 Chris Fontaine - Lakeland
7. 36c Ross Chastain - Alva
8. 93 Joe Gentry - Punta Gorda
9. 77 Ed Leake - Fort Lauderdale
10. 11w David Weaver - Plantation
11. 54x David Weaver
12. 48 Johnny Kay
13. 5 Robert Regula - Fort Lauderdale
14. 4 Randy Fox - Lehigh Acres
15. 21 Blake Koch - West Palm Beach
16. 15 Joe Winchell - Dade City
17. 33 Casey Caudill - Port Orange
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