(Bill W) – Sixteen year old, Austin McCarl, got his season started last weekend at I-80 Speedway near Greenwood, Nebraska. Two nights saw two totally different racing surfaces, resulting in a good time for a young driver to get some laps in. Austin qualified for Friday's 20-car feature event with over forty of the Midwest's best drivers assembled.
Friday's track was a heavy one. Rains from the previous day made sure of that. Austin started third in his heat race behind pole-sitter Mike Boston. He would follow him to the finish for second. "It was pretty narrow at that point," says Austin of the track's condition. "In the 360 deal, the start is so important. Everyone is equal with these ASCS heads and stuff. The first lap is almost everything in those kind of races. I kind of got a good start, and the guy on the outside of row one (Gage Dorr) had a bad one, and I moved into second and held on."
Starting outside row five, Austin got off to a rough start and bicycled up into turn one. He managed to right the car and finished the race sixteenth. "I got a little too deep into one, and hit a hole," he says of his start. "Miraculously, I didn't end up out by the pit shack. We kind of missed the setup. We had too much stagger and that killed our entry into the corner. That along with me falling out of the seat late in the race was a bad combination."
A typical dry-slick track for the 3/8 mile banked oval was on tap for Saturday. A few new entries made the car count 46. After falling back in his heat race, Austin finished where he started (fifth). "It was a totally different deal," he says of the track. "We had different tires and a different mentality in the racecar. It was definitely a different approach to getting around the track. I tried to make something happen that first lap in the heat race, and it didn't work too well. After that, I just tried to make the car nice, and get some solid laps in. I fell back and got back to fifth."
Every race Austin ran, went green to checker. Saturday's B main was no different. After starting eighth, he fell back then moved up to seventh. "I'm usually not comfortable on a slick track, but it went good," he says. "In my head, I was winning everything. I was a little too timid on the start; I didn't want to wad it up. There was a lot of mayhem going on. After I fell back a ways, I got up on the wheel a bit. I knew I had to run top four, so we did the best we could from there and ended up moving up a bit."
Overall, Austin was pleased with the weekend. "I felt good about the weekend, with the track being so different both nights. We finished all of the races, and that's one of the goals. You can't win if you don't finish."
Austin plans to compete in the Janet Holbrook #17 at Park Jefferson Speedway in South Dakota on Friday with the Jackson Sprint Touring Series. On Saturday, the high school sophomore will be attending his Prom. After that, the Knoxville 410 season begins.
Austin would like to thank Janet Holbrook, Lenard, Kenny, Jimmy, DeBerg Concrete, AmericashAdvance.com, Burnett's Rock and Landscaping, Phil and Vivian, and Goodyear Tires for all their help!