---

Rustad Garners Hard Charger Award During Solid Night at Huset’s Speedway

(Photo by Tylan Porath Photography)

Inside Line Promotions – BRANDON, S.D. (July 14, 2021) – Tony Rustad continued to gain experience and show improvement last Sunday at Huset’s Speedway.

The 410ci sprint car rookie overcame a heat race incident midway through the night to finish 16th in the Buffalo Wild Wings Northern Outlaw Sprint Association main event after starting 24th. That earned the Hard Charger Award for passing the most cars.

“It wasn’t too bad of a night,” he said. “We made almost all of our laps, except for a few in the heat race. That’s one of our goals each night as we continue to learn.

“We were the Hard Charger in the feature. Granted, that was mainly due to cars dropping out. But we avoided crashes to finish and toward the end of the race we were running lap times within a tenth or two of the top five, so that was reassuring.”

Rustad began the night by timing in 13th quickest out of 25 drivers.

“We missed the heat race invert by one spot,” he said. “If we were 12th, we would’ve started on the pole of our heat race. I felt pretty good about our time, since the car pushed in the middle of the turn and I had to get on the brakes. I think we learned why the car was doing that and we should be better next time.”

Rustad’s heat race ended early after contact with the wall.

“We made some changes to the car and it hooked up a little too much,” he said. “It wheelied coming out of turn four and went up to the frontstretch wall before I could get the tires back on the ground to steer it. The right rear tire smacked the wall. I pulled in and the Jacob’s Ladder was twisted into a pretzel. We replaced it before the feature.”

Rustad’s heat race DNF relegated him to the 24th starting position in the A Main.

“The race started out well,” he said. “We passed five cars on the outside in the first lap. But I gave them up later as the bottom line was faster once everyone got going.

“I felt better in the car as the race went on. Most of the others had their fastest laps early in the race. Mine was on Lap 23. It was good to run the entire race and get more laps for experience.”

Rustad is looking forward to returning to Huset’s Speedway this Sunday.

“We learned some more things that I think will make us faster moving forward,” he said. “Also, we’re going to run our nice shocks for the first time. We’ve just been running standard shocks so far this year. I’m excited to see how the new ones perform.”

QUICK RESULTS –

July 11 – Huset’s Speedway in Brandon, S.D. – Qualifying: 13; Heat race: DNF (5); Feature: 16 (24).

SEASON STATS –

7 races, 0 wins, 0 top fives, 0 top 10s, 1 top 15, 3 top 20s

UP NEXT –

Sunday at Huset’s Speedway in Brandon, S.D.

MEDIA LINKS –

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TonyRustad

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/2Xtreme-Racing-243238039097395

SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT – Bang Energy Drink

Bang is a brand of energy drinks made by Vital Pharmaceuticals and distributed by PepsiCo. Bang Energy's stated mission is to make high-quality nutritional supplements backed by scientific research. For more information, visit https://bangenergy.com/.

“Bang Energy Drink is distributed by Pepsi and Tim Haubrich of Pepsi has been with us since we first started racing over 20 years ago,” Rustad said. “It’s difficult to find a long-term sponsor you can rely on every year. They’ve made a huge difference to our racing operation and we greatly appreciate their support.”

Rustad would also like to thank Olsen Electric, Tim Rustad Construction, Christoffels Hair Restoration, Bill Habben Construction, KISD 98.7 FM and The Barrel House for their continued support.

INSIDE LINE PROMOTIONS –

Inside Line Promotions specializes in affordable public relations and media management for motor sports drivers, teams, sponsors, tracks, series, events, organizations and manufacturers. ILP Founder Shawn Miller leverages professional journalism with new media technologies and social networking to improve your exposure and the return on investment for your sponsors.

To meet the media relations needs of your program by joining Team ILP, contact Shawn at 541-510-3663 or Shawn@InsideLinePromotions.com. For more information on Inside Line Promotions, visit http://www.InsideLinePromotions.com.

---

Back to News