Reutzel Back on the All Star Trail after Pair of Knoxville Weekends
CLUTE, Texas (August 21, 2020) – Aaron Reutzel and the Baughman-Reutzel Motorsports No. 87 Sprint Car team continue the quest for a third consecutive All Star Circuit of Champions crown with a pair of events this weekend.
The weekend kicks off Friday night at Wisconsin’s Wilmot Raceway before moving on to Indiana’s Plymouth Speedway on Saturday. Reutzel takes a 92-point lead into the weekend on the strength of a handful of wins and a series’ best 16 top-fives and 21 top-tens.
“We have a good stretch of All Star races coming up, we just have to finish out strong,” the driver of the Folkens Brothers Trucking/Dissolvalloy Downhole Revolution No. 87 Triple-X Sprint Car commented.
Reutzel gets back into the All Star swing of things after a pair of weekends with blazing speed at the famed Knoxville Raceway aboard the Precision Catalyst/Hollywood Blasting & Coating/Beard Equipment entry.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have the luck to go with it.
Reutzel’s Knoxville adventures began with the Thursday portion of the Knoxville 360 Nationals on August 6, timing in third-quickest on the night and then making a critical charge from sixth to second in his heat race to put the Nattress Construction/Momentum Racing Suspension mount atop the point charts going into the feature.
Gridding the feature sixth, Reutzel raced up to second by the midway point and had the leader in his sights only to have the rear end gears strip out seven laps shy of the finish. The resulting finish of 23rd was still enough to secure Reutzel the 20th starting position in the Saturday night finale.
Reutzel made the most of it, rallying through the field to pass a dozen cars for an eighth place finish in the Fischer Body Shop machine.
Shifting back to 410-ci action with last weekend’s “One & Only” in place of the traditional Knoxville Nationals, Reutzel started out strong once again by timing in fifth-quickest on Thursday night and then making another critical charge from seventh to third in heat race action to put the team in a strong points position.
Reutzel finished out Thursday night third in the feature to escape the night with the top points total among the field of 67 and then put together a strong Friday night that resulted in a tenth-place finish, good enough to secure a position among the top four that assured a Saturday night Dash position.
Reutzel earned a runner-up finish in Saturday’s Dash to earn the front row outside starting position for the largest-paying World of Outlaws event of the season and held down second in the early going only to suffer a mechanical failure that brought an early end to the night.
“I feel like we had a top-three car at the worst, I would like to have seen what we could have done,” Reutzel says. “It was just one of those that wasn’t meant to happen.”
Reutzel and the BRM No. 87 look to get back on the winning track with the All Star Circuit of Champions in Wisconsin and Indiana this weekend.
2020 Quick Stats: 59 races, 11 wins, 29 top-fives, 41 top-tens.
Next Up: All Star Circuit of Champions at Wilmot (WI) Raceway on Friday and Plymouth (IN) Speedway on Saturday.
Keep Track: Keep track of Aaron Reutzel’s on-track action including schedule and results at http://www.aaronreutzelracing.com/, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Aaron-Reutzel-Racing/117666254913127 or on Twitter at @AaronReutzel. You can also e-mail Aaron at aaronreutzel@yahoo.com.
Sources: Lonnie Wheatley, Aaron Reutzel PR