6/1/2015
Cole Wood
MWR/Bryan Clauson – Building Momentum!
MWR/Bryan Clauson – Building Momentum!
(Bill W) June 1, 2015 – Bryan Clauson and the Matt Wood Racing #17w team like the rest of us have had enough with Mother Nature! Two out of the three shows planned last weekend were a wash. The FVP National Sprint League did get their event in Thursday at the Saint Francois County Raceway near Farmington, Missouri, and the team had a car to contend for a win. A bit of misfortune got in the way, but they will be back Wednesday night for the World of Outlaws event at Kokomo Speedway in Indiana.
Despite being the 35th driver out of 41 to qualify on Thursday, Bryan timed in fifth quick on a track that was lending to slower times in the latter stages. “It was a great qualifying effort for us,” he says. “It seemed like the track had slowed down quite a bit. I watched a couple of guys qualifying in the middle who ran a little different line. I was able to kind of tweak on it a little bit and make it our own. We laid down a couple of good laps and that set the tone for the night.”
The misfortune hit first in the heat race. Starting fifth, Bryan was solidly in a transfer spot when he spun. “We were racing hard with AJ Bruns,” he says. “We got by him and one point, and he raced back by. I started to adjust my line in one a two a little bit to get a better run down the back straightaway. I obviously missed it and spun out. It was totally my fault. With the NSL format, you want to get what you can out of the heat race, you want to push as hard as you can. I got a little too greedy and went from hero to zero pretty quick!”
He would make it through the B main with a second place finish. “We didn’t feel all that great,” says Bryan. “Even though we wanted to be in the redraw, we’re still at a point where laps are important. I got an extra fourteen laps there. It got kind of wild with some of the lapped cars late in the race, but we made it through there unscathed. It was a little extra tuning session for the feature.”
Starting ninth, Bryan charged forward in the main event and for a time was running third. His bid for the win was shot down by a cut tire. “It was a really great run for us,” he says. “I was really proud of the guys for the car we had. We got to a point, where I really felt we were going to be a factor for the win there. It was just bad luck. There’s not much you can do about running over something and cutting a tire.”
Still, the run at Farmington was a momentum builder heading into this week. “It was definitely a bummer, but at the same time, it was the first night we felt like we were good enough to win,” says Bryan. “We were in contention at Burlington, but we felt Terry (McCarl) was quite a bit better. At Farmington, we felt like we had the best, or one of the best cars. It just wasn’t meant to be. Our team is still going through a learning process, so nights like this one are still a big positive. We can take a lot from them, and it’s a page for our notebook for the future.”
Mother Nature took events in Moberly, Missouri on Friday and Knoxville Raceway in Iowa on Saturday. “It’s frustrating for everybody,” says Bryan of the rain. “We’re into June and we feel like we haven’t run that much. Obviously, I took a couple weeks off for Indy, but we should have had a lot more racing done by now. We’re making some tweaks to our schedule, and hopefully, we’ll have a bunch of races in by mid-June.”
This week will see the Matt Wood Racing #17w team competing with the World of Outlaws Wednesday at Kokomo, on Friday at Jacksonville (IL) Speedway’s “Double Down Showdown” and Saturday at Knoxville. Bryan will also see midget action at Quincy (IL) Raceways Thursday, Jacksonville Friday and Belle-Clair Speedway in Belleville, Illinois Sunday.
Matt Wood Racing would like to thank: Elk Grove Ford, Quick Lane, Fuel Safe, Schoenfeld and Vortex Wings!
To follow the Matt Wood Racing’s progress online, visit www.ColeWoodRacing.com!
Follow Bryan Clauson online at www.BryanClauson.com!
Photo: Bryan gets the wheels up at Farmington (Rob Kocak Photo)
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