Inside Line Promotions - ALGER, Wash. (June 24, 2013) - Better late than never.
Austen Wheatley missed the first preliminary night of action at the 42nd annual Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup last Friday at Skagit Speedway because his new car wasn't quite ready.
"We started building it on Monday and with my schedule at Downforce Designs and my dad's work schedule, we couldn't make it out," he said. "There was no seat, no tail tank, the wing wasn't lettered. There was a bunch of stuff we had to do to it."
Wheatley and his team worked throughout the night to get it ready for Saturday, when the second preliminary event was held prior to the $20,000-to-win finale that night.
"I was up for like 27 hours," he said. "On the way to the track I took a nap and that's only a 45-minute car ride.
"We missed hot laps. I showed up and barely made it out for qualifying. I hadn't raced in Skagit in two years and I hadn't raced overall in two months."
Wheatley qualified 23rd quickest to narrowly miss the heat race inversion. After starting fifth in his heat, he powered to a third-place finish to earn a transfer to the main event. Since the drivers who advanced through the heat races were fully inverted for the feature, Wheatley started on the pole for the 30-lap race.
"I thought it was pretty cool," he said. "I thought we had a shot to win it. I gave it all I had. We were pretty quick. Early on I was running the bottom. In lapped traffic everybody was running the bottom. The first lap I got to lapped traffic I went to the top. It felt to me I was faster on the top than the bottom so I kept ripping it."
Wheatley led the first 27 laps before Peter Murphy took over the top spot with less than three laps remaining.
"He passed me on the bottom of turn two," Wheatley said. "When he passed me he got a good lead on me. The top went away real quick. Shane Stewart snuck by me with two to go in (turns) three and four. I got by him coming to the white flag and he passed me back in (turns) one and two."
Wheatley finished third to earn his first podium of the season.
Since he wasn't able to compete in Friday's preliminary event, Wheatley was 29th in overall points heading into Saturday night's features. That placed him 15th in the B Main, which transferred the top eight to the main event.
It didn't take long for Wheatley to charge into a transfer position as he picked up eight positions in the first couple of laps. He finished sixth to earn a transfer and start the main event 20th.
"It was a long day," he said. "We ran pretty decent. I could maneuver top to bottom. We were slowly but surely picking them off. The track was really, really fast. There were vapor trails coming off the nose wings."
Wheatley drove from 20th to 13th to earn the Hard Charger Award and his best career finish at the Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup.
"It was two good races," he said. "There was a lot of speed and definitely something to build on."
QUICK RESULTS -
June 22 - Skagit Speedway in Alger, Wash. - Qualifying: 23; Heat race: 3 (5); Feature: 3 (1).
June 22 - Skagit Speedway in Alger, Wash. - B Main: 6 (15); Feature: 13 (20).
SEASON STATS -
13 races, 0 wins, 1 top five, 1 top 10, 2 top 15s, 4 top 20s
UP NEXT -
TBA
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS -
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MiniWheats44w
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DownForceDesigns?fref=ts
SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT - Downforce Designs
Downforce Designs is an apparel company established and operated by Austen Wheatley. For information on apparel options, prices, clientele and more, visit www.DownforceDesigns.com.
"It's good to have a fresh take on shirts in the sport," Wheatley said. "My goal is to provide something unique and diverse, and I think I know what a driver wants to see on his or her apparel. It's a racer helping racers."
Wheatley would also like to thank Redlined Welding & Construction, BR Motorsports, The Oil Medics, Fire-Down Graphics, Astro Titanium, Bell and King Racing Products for their continued support.
INSIDE LINE PROMOTIONS -
Inside Line Promotions specializes in affordable public relations, media management and merchandising services for sprint car teams. ILP Founder Shawn Miller leverages professional journalism with new media technologies and social networking to improve your exposure and your sponsors' return on investment.
To meet the media relations needs of your team, contact Shawn at 541-510-3663 or sprintcarreporter@yahoo.com. For more information on Inside Line Promotions, visit www.insidelinepromotions.com.