Speedfest 2012
2/2/12 Speedfest 2012- Kyle's first major Late Model Race and he was up for the challenge. A lot of conversation had been made that Kyle can run good at Lanier with the low car count but, how would he do in a big event with a large number of quality cars. He was excited for the challenge.Kyle headed to Watermelon Capital Speedway last weekend with one thing in mind. That was to qualify up front, run all the laps and get a good finish, and that was exactly what he did. Mumbles (Crew Chief- Jeff Holden) unloaded the car for practice on Friday and went to work. On the first run, the gear was way off and after a quick gear change, Kyle was practicing in the 16.50 to 16.60 range. This wasn't exactly what they were looking for, so they kept working to make the car better on old tires. Kyle finished up the day 14th fastest.
On Saturday, Mumbles did a tremendous job keeping Kyle happy and loose. Kyle went out for his first run in practice and the car was decent, but not as fast and consistent as they were looking for. Mumbles brought him in and decided to make a huge change.Kyle went back on the track and immediately came on the radio and said, "that is it, right there". The car was so good, Mumbles decided, not to even run the 2nd scheduled practice. You could tell that Kyles confidence was growing.
It was time to qualify. Kyle went out 10th in qualifying and laid down a tremendous first lap of 16.055, that was good enough for 4th fastest. On the 2nd lap, Kyle admitted his missed his line a little, and the lap showed it. It was a slower lap. He ended up 6th overall and was very happy with the first lap. Kyle said, "I wish I had that 2nd lap to do over, I believe we had a mid 15.90 in there. I am still happy with where we are".
Kyle started the race in 6th and stayed in the top 5 all of the 150 laps. He had some tremendous racing with the #18 and the #54. Kyle had worked his way to 3rd and was catching the 2nd place car, and a caution came out with 11 laps to go. By the time the safety workers got everything cleaned up, only 5 laps remained. Kyle was 3rd on the restart and the car on the outside pinched him off and almost caused them both to wreck. Kyle regained his composure and finished the race 5th. After the race, Kyle was extremely happy and said, "I really wanted to finish in the top 3 after getting to that point, but I am pretty happy with where we ended up. Our car wouldn't even have a scratch on it, if the #1 car had held his line on that restart. I want to thank Dwayne Buggay for allowing me to run this car. Thanks to Jeff Holden for doing a great job on getting the car dialed in. Aslo, I want to thank David and Brett Ragan, for asking Rocky (David's Cup Spotter) to spot for me. He did a great job keeping me focused. I also want to thank Russell Fleeman and his crew and all of their help and advice. Also, thanks to all my fans, especially Marty and Jo for driving from North Carolina to see me race".
Kyle is working on a deal to possibly run the "Rattler" in about a month. We will try to post that on the website as soon as possible.