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Two Races, Two Wrecks, But Two Top-10 Finishes For Hall
Some weekends at the race track a driver has all the good luck on their side. No matter what happens, they always come out on top. But sometimes, no matter how hard a driver and team tries, bad luck seems to set in and not let go. Kyle Hall felt the bad luck grip Saturday in the twin Late Model Stock Car races at Old Dominion Speedway (VA). After being involved in two similar racing incidents, Hall’s top-10 finishing streak looked to be in jeopardy, but determination kept the streak alive as he finished seventh and 10th in the two races.
Hall’s day started off on the positive side in practice and qualifying. But a wreck on the first lap of the race changed the tone of the day.
“We had a new motor in the car so we were pretty happy with it,” said Hall. “We were pretty fast in practice, one of the fastest three cars out there. I ended up qualifying fourth, but on an invert I started the race in third.
“I went down in the turn on the very first lap and the second-place guy came down on me a little bit. We got down to turn three on the next lap and he came all the way down on me and tore us both up pretty bad. The toe was knocked out really bad, bent a spindle and hurt the shock.
“They did a complete race restart so I started again from third. When I went down in the corner the car pushed worse than a dump truck. I could barely drive it. I was just riding trying to get to the finish of the race and I started losing power in the motor. I took it easy as much as I could and ended up finishing seventh.”
Between the two races, Hall’s crew worked hard to get his car back together where they could race competitively.
“We looked at the car and saw all the damage from the wreck,” explained Hall. “We also took the hood off and looked at the motor. We burnt off a spark plug wire and a second one was starting to burn, so that is what killed our horsepower.”
With the confidence back up, Hall started seventh in the second race. He was quickly moving his way up to the front when bad luck struck again.
“I got up to fourth and started passing a guy for third and he came down on me like the first race incident. It bent the spindle again, knocked the toe out and bent a shock. It handled about two times worse than it did in the first race.
“I fell back to tenth and took it easy because I didn’t want to wreck the car. I did the best I could. At least we kept our top-10 finish streak alive.”
Hall will return to Lowe’s Motor Speedway (NC) for the seventh round of the Summer Shootout series in his #69 Semi-Pro Legends car on Tuesday, July 17th, then he will be back in his #69 Late Model Stock Car at Old Dominion Speedway (VA) on Saturday, July 21st.
