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(Bill W) May 17, 2010 – It was another solid week in the education of young sprint car driver Austin McCarl. The Altoona, Iowa seventeen year old put a fourth place finish in the special 410 show at the Rapid Speedway in Rock Rapids, Iowa together with an 12th place run at Knoxville that earned him hard-charger honors. Friday’s race in Rock Rapids drew 24 cars to the bullring. “That’s a fun little joint, and I look forward to going back,” says Austin. “We need more 410 races like that in our area, and I think they can see the fans support it.” After a limited time on the track, Austin lined up outside row two for the heat. “I was pretty nervous going into the heat,” he says. “I hadn’t really got a good lap in hot laps. I didn’t really have a feel for the track, and they only gave us a lap or two.” He would finish a solid second. “I learned a lot,” he says. “I gave it all I had going into one, and it turned out o.k. It’s a wide track, but it’s pretty round. The straightaways are pretty short. The corners are long.” Starting inside row four for the feature, the advance to fourth started right away. “We had a great start,” says Austin. “We got up to third by the fourth lap when there was a caution. Brian Brown had a good jump and drove by several cars including me. Later on in traffic, I ran Brian and Chad Meyer down. There was a point where I could have stuck my nose in there, but I wanted to make sure and finish. We had a good run, and I at least had to be smart for one second.” A dry-slick Knoxville track on Saturday saw Austin qualify 26th in the 31-car field. “We were late getting there, and we were kind of in a cluster,” he says. “We didn’t get to hot lap. I went to the bottom of turns one and two qualifying, and I shouldn’t have. I just didn’t know, and with the one lap, I was scrambling.” After getting valuable laps driving from ninth to sixth in his heat, Austin was rewarded with a ticket to the 12-lap B main. After getting the black flag from Doug Clark, he would advance to a transfer spot in eighth. “I didn’t know they were taking nine (out of the B),” he says. “Starting tenth, I thought I needed to make something happen to get in the top five, and they busted me for it. To be honest, the heat race was probably more of a jump for me than the B. I came in pretty disappointed, but Brian came down and told us we were in the show. We didn’t believe him, but when we found out, we were scrambling to get ready.” The 20-lap feature was next. Austin drove a steady race to advance to 12th, and earn the hard-charger award. “Starting 23rd, my dad (Terry) told me that if I got to 15th, I was kicking butt,” he says. “I just kept hitting my marks, and things worked out for us. As more rubber was laid, I was driving a little harder and taking advantage of the mistakes made ahead of me. We were able to move up there and get the hard charger.”
Visit Austin on the Web!
Keep up to date on Austin’s exploits at www.AustinMcCarl.com! Austin would like to thank Big Game Treestands, AmericashAdvance.com, RFG (Rossie Feed and Grain), Anderson Farms, DeBerg Concrete, Deanfield Farms, Engler, Phil & Vivian, Vortex Wings, Maxim Chassis, K&N Filters, Mark Burch, Hoosier Tire, BMRS, HRP, Schoenfeld, Jocko’s, Butlerbuilt, Bell Helmets, Crow Safety and Chase Graphics for all their help!
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