Chris Budzban

Budzo Racing Grabs Points Lead at Thunderhill; 2nd Place Finish at Luxemburg

June 16, 2014 Chris Budzban

Chris Budzban & Andy Kleczka

Photo by Dan Lewis – www.danlewisphoto.net

Heading into the weekend, we had compiled a string of 3 straight 2nd place feature finishes between Luxemburg Speedway and Thunderhill Raceway. Those finishes shot us into the 4th spot in the standings at Luxemburg and into a tie for 1st at Thunderhill.

On Friday night at Luxemburg, action in the heat race was a little on the chaotic side in the early going, as cars got together on the opening lap forcing the field to scatter. We stayed green and a lap later a pileup occurred, prompting a restart. I jumped from the 5th spot on the restart and launched into 2nd on the outside, holding off Jarred VanLaanen at the checkers.

Our heat race finish would put me 9th on the starting grid for the night’s feature. Sticking to the low groove on the track, I steadily picked off cars to move into the top 5 behind Hunter Parsons. A caution at the midway point bunched the field, and I looked to split the gap between Scott Boulanger and Jacob Zellner for 2nd. I was able to make the pass after a couple of tries, and set sail on the high line to try to chase down Tracy Wassenberg for the lead. A final caution with 5 laps remaining set up my chance to try to overtake the lead, but Wassenberg was too strong on the bottom. The runner-up finish would be our 4th consecutive feature finish between Luxemburg and Thunderhill.

On Saturday at Thunderhill, I started 5th in the feature and outdueled Jeff Lautenbach late in the race to overtake 2nd at the checkers. I was originally slated to start 10th in the feature, but a chassis issue forced Lautenbach to scratch for the feature, moving me into the 9th spot on the starting grid.

At the drop of the green, VanLaanen and I moved through the pack quickly into the top 5 on the bottom of the track. I moved up to the high groove to get past Randy LeMieux for 4th, and tracked down VanLaanen and Josh Massart just ahead. The two would run side by side for many laps, until VanLaanen prevailed on the bottom to move into 2nd. I tried to make the pass on Massart on the low groove, but a combination of missed setup and strength of the high line wouldn’t allow it to happen. I would settle for a 4th place finish on the night in the caution free event.

Our finishes on the weekend have now put us into the 3rd spot in the standings at Luxemburg Speedway and we now have sole possession of the points lead at Thunderhill Raceway by a single point. We look to keep up the solid finishes next weekend at both tracks yet again. Should rain force either track to cancel, we will most likely head to Seymour Speedway on Sunday night.

Remember you can find Budzo Racing on the web at budzoracing.com. Also, you can keep up with the team on social media via Facebook at facebook.com/budzoracing, Twitter at twitter.com/budzoracing and YouTube at youtube.com/budzoracing.