Lost The Race By Half a Car Length At Kevin Harvick's Kern Raceway - 4-19-25

Описание: Man, this race was a tough one. We kicked the day off solid in the practice by sitting P.2 in lap times. In the last practice the car felt like it was losing power so my team took a look at it and was able to get it fixed before qualifying. When qualifying came, the car was on rails and we got our first pole. I was so hyped. I had high hopes for the race and thought for sure we could win it. Once we took the green flag, we instantly pulled away from second place. We had a huge lead and were leading by a whole straight-a-way. Then my spotter told me to open up my entry going into turn 3 so I could get a better run coming out of the corner. But I got into some speedy dry which made me very loose. I was really sideways through turns 3 and 4. This allowed second place to catch up. Now we only had about a two car length lead. We kept leading the race until we reached the lapped cars. I fought hard to get around the first lapped car but they wouldn't let me pass. They kept running the middle of the track so we couldn't pass on the outside or inside. Even after putting the bumper to them, they still didn't move out of the way. At this point, second place was right on our bumper trying to get around. Then with 4 laps to go, I knew I had to make something happen, so I went to pass the lapped car going into turn 1, but this left the inside open and then second place drove in way too deep and took us out. Luckily they spun too. We both got sent to the back for the restart which was frustrating. Once we took the green flag, I drove defensively so I didn't get passed by the person who spun me, while at the same time trying to make back some spots. Didn't have any luck until the last lap in the last corner. Second place spun out the leader so we were able to gain one spot and crossed the line side by side with the car that was in front of me. Turns out they disqualified the person that spun the leader. Which resulted in us getting second. It was definitely frustrating knowing that we had one of the best cars and only lost the race by a car length. Also knowing that our first ever win was only about 3 feet away from us definitely sucked. But over all had fun and am proud of where we finished under the circumstances. Big thanks to Bob Bruncati and the Sunrise Racing Team for making this possible.