The trip to the Rocky Mountains proved well worth the scenic drive for Brad Loyet and the Vacuworx Global/Miller Truck Lines #o5 team. They picked up two wins with the Lucas Oil ASCS National Series, extending their point lead. The Sunset Hills, Missouri driver won at Electric City Speedway in Great Falls, Montana and at the Black Hills Speedway near Rapid City, South Dakota. The team will regroup this week before tackling the Knoxville 360 Nationals next week.
ASCS visited Great Falls on Friday, July 11. Brad drew a heat starting spot outside of row three. “It was a fairly tough heat race,” he says. “We were only able to get up to fourth. We had a good car…it was just all we had. That’s part of the game.”
The finish saw him scheduled to start twelfth in the feature. “Jeff Swindell ended up changing motors, so we ended up starting tenth,” says Brad. “We decided to change the tires right before the feature. The green flag dropped, and I think we were up to fourth on the first lap.”
The charge continued all the way to the checkers. “We got to second pretty quickly, but it was one of those deals where the yellows were coming out at the wrong time,” says Brad. “We were faster than the leader, but we kept getting a caution. We were finally able to get by him on a restart, and led the rest of the race. That was pretty cool to get that win. It was a good points night. It’s special to come from tenth and win, rather than the front row.”
Billings Motorsports Park Speedway hosted the series the following night. Brad went from sixth to third in his heat. “There wasn’t a whole lot of moving around in the heat,” he says. “We were just standing on the gas. We were able to get from sixth to third, but we were one spot out of the redraw. It turned out if we had passed one more car, we’d have been high point guy.”
The main event saw him go from ninth to fifth. “We really got to fifth right away, and rode around there the rest of the race,” says Brad. “We were in a situation where we were running with the guys in front of us, but couldn’t quite get by them. It was a night where you’re o.k. to run fifth.”
Last Friday night, things started well with a heat race win in Rapid City. “We were lucky enough to draw the pole for the heat,” says Brad. “We were the only National car in the heat, which may have been a factor too.”
The redraw saw Brad start fourth in the feature. “It took about three starts to get the race going,” he says. “On about the third one, we ended up coming out running third. We ran there for a while. There was an open red on lap eleven. We were able to get into second right before it. We were able to make some changes on the car and it made a big difference.”
The difference meant a pass for the lead and another win. “I was able to get by Jason (Johnson) in lapped traffic with about ten laps to go,” says Brad. “From there, we just put it on cruise control, running around the bottom and picking up the win.”
The team made the 10+ hour tow to Knoxville to run with the 410’s on Saturday night. “We had our fresh motor that we’ll be running at the Nationals,” says Brad. “We’d tried some things with the gearing to try and find some speed. It didn’t do quite what we wanted it to do (19th quick). We were still able to make the heat invert.”
Brad would run fifth in his heat race. “We missed the setup a little bit, but still made it to the feature,” he says. “I felt like we had a really good car in the feature. We started 15th and it felt like we were going forward. We had a nozzle line come loose and we had an engine fire. That ended the night, and we’re getting the motor checked out today. We’re making sure it’s good to go for Nationals.”
The team is carrying confidence into the 360 Nationals, which will run July 31 to August 2 at Knoxville. “I feel our 360 program is really rolling right now,” says Brad. “I feel we’re one of the teams to beat this year. All of our attention is on getting our cars ready to go for the Nationals. We’ll be ready to Rock ‘N Roll!”
- administrator on Jul 22, 2014
- Article Date: 7/22/2014