Reutzel Battles through to Billings

Lonnie Wheatley, CLUTE, Texas (July 14, 2016) – Saturday night’s $7,500 winner’s share could go a long way towards turning Aaron Reutzel’s fortunes back in the right direction.

Reutzel enters this weekend’s $7,500-to-win NSA Shootout double at Billings Motorsports Park coming off a rash of rotten luck in the Shark-powered Dissolvalloy Downhole Revolution/BC Fundz No. 87 Triple-X Sprint Car.

In the last two weekends of Lucas Oil ASCS competition, Reutzel has suffered three consecutive DNF’s after posting a fifth-place finish in the Fred Brownfield Classic at Grays Harbor.  And that fifth-place finish concluded with a destroyed race car, if that gives a hint as to how ill the fortune has been.

“I guess we’re paying for all the good we had last year,” Reutzel said in reference to the 2015 season when he drove the Wren Motorsports/Momentum Racing Suspensions entry to the Lucas Oil ASCS National championship.

Reutzel was running third in the Fred Brownfield Classic preliminary event on Friday night, July 1, until a bolt broke on a radius rod late in the feature.

“I couldn’t hardly steer it, we fell back to fifth and didn’t get locked in,” Reutzel recalls.  It got worse after he took the checkered flag.  “I lifted getting into one and the car spun.  The car behind me plowed me, then it seemed like a minute later the car running last hit me too.”

The damage was extensive.

“It killed everything,” Reutzel says.  “The car, the engine, everything was junk.”

While no more killed cars, Reutzel and the Danny Sander Construction/ButlerBuilt team have been plagued by problems since.

On night two of the Fred Brownfield Classic, Reutzel suffered a broken lifter in the spare engine after the primary piece was damaged in the post-race crash the night before.  “We could have maybe borrowed an engine from someone, but we were just so frustrated and decided it probably wasn’t worth it.

Action shifted to Montana’s Gallatin Speedway in Belgrade last weekend, but it seemed that Reutzel still had a grizzly on his back at the Grizzly Nationals.

“We broke a rocker running fifth the first night,” Reutzel says.  “And then we were running fifth again the second night and blew a right rear tire.”

It’s a trend that of bad fortune that can’t end soon enough for Reutzel and the Wright Way Logistics/Walker Performance Filtration team.

Hopefully, it begins with a $7,500 payday at Billings Motorsports Park on Saturday after Friday night’s $2,000-to-win preliminary.

“We definitely need it right now,” Reutzel wraps up.

2016 Quick Stats:  53 races, 3 wins, 13 top-fives, 24 top-tens.

Up Next:

Friday and Saturday – NSA Shootout at Billings Motorsports Park in Billings, MT.

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.

If you would like Aaron Reutzel Racing press releases e-mailed directly to you, send your e-mail address to Lonnie Wheatley at lonniewheatley@gmail.com.

Penning the recurring series of “The Wheatley Chronicles” articles on www.sprintcarmania.com, Lonnie Wheatley provides media, public relations and more for select tracks, drivers and events.  For more information, Wheatley may be contacted at lonniewheatley@gmail.com.

Bellm Puts Together Strong Weekend

Lonnie Wheatley, NIXA, Mo. (July 14, 2016) – It was a three-race weekend that Kyle Bellm and the Resource Asset Management Solutions (RAMS) No. 14k Sprint Car team looked forward to.

And they made the most of it with finishes of fourth and sixth in the events in Oklahoma and Arkansas with the other feature washed out as Bellm was poised to challenge for the win from the fourth starting position.

“We had a pretty good weekend, the car was good and we were able to get some good finishes,” Bellm said of the three-race set at Oklahoma’s Creek County and Outlaw Motor Speedways along with Little Rock’s I-30 Speedway.

This weekend, Bellm will take the wheel of the Smith Racing No. 86 entry for Saturday night’s ASCS Warrior Region go at Moberly, Missouri’s Randolph County Raceway.

Last weekend started out on Thursday night with the opening leg of the ASCS Red River Region’s “Sooner Sweep” at Creek County Speedway near Tulsa.

“It wasn’t a great track to draw a 50 on,” Bellm said of the start of the weekend for the PPG Automotive Finishes/Colorvision team.

Mired towards the back of a heat on a difficult track to make much headway on, Bellm gridded the feature field in 15th.

Bellm stayed out of trouble early and worked his way to a sixth-place finish in the Schure Built Suspensions/Christian County Collision Repair machine.

“I messed up once trying the top of three and four and let one car get by me, otherwise I felt like we got what we could get,” Bellm explained.

“Sooner Sweep” action shifted to Outlaw Motor Speedway near Muskogee on Friday night.

Bellm posted a strong runner-up heat race finish in the Bybee Lawn Care/Dynotech Racing Engines entry and was set to start fourth in the feature atop the fast, 3/8-mile clay oval before the skies opened up.

“I think we were sitting in a good position to race for the win, it would have been interesting,” Bellm said of the Outlaw rainout.

From there, Bellm and the Schaeffer Oil/Prater Designs/Racinboys crew made their first trek to Little Rock’s I-30 Speedway for Saturday night’s $3,000-to-win event.

After a last-lap pass to snare third in his heat race, Bellm gridded the feature eighth and was soon chasing the lead duo in third after avoiding an opening lap melee.

And when the lead pair got together momentarily, Bellm was there to pounce.  At least for a few moments.

“We had a shot to win that one, we just didn’t tighten up enough,” Bellm says.  “We didn’t think the track was gonna do that.”

Losing the handle on the car as the 30-lapper progressed, Bellm slipped back to fifth and then battled back into fourth place as the checkered flag flew.

“It was getting so loose, we were really just holding on the last half of that one,” Bellm says.

Still, it continued a recent trend of solid runs that includes finishes of no lower than sixth in the last four events.

“That’s something we hope to continue as the year progresses,” Bellm says.

He will try to continue that trend on Saturday night at Randolph County Raceway.

2016 Quick Stats:  24 races, 1 win, 8 top-fives, 10 top-tens.

Up Next: ASCS Warrior Region at Moberly, Missouri’s Randolph County Raceway on Saturday night.

Keep Track:  Keep track of Kyle Bellm’s on-track action including schedule and results at http://www.kylebellm.com/, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KyleBellmRacing?fref=ts or on Twitter at @kylebellmracing.

If you would like Kyle Bellm Racing press releases e-mailed directly to you, send your e-mail address to Lonnie Wheatley at lonniewheatley@gmail.com.

Penning the recurring series of “The Wheatley Chronicles” articles on www.sprintcarmania.com, Lonnie Wheatley provides media, public relations and more for select tracks, drivers and events.  For more information, Wheatley may be contacted at lonniewheatley@gmail.com.