6/15/2009
Sprint Source
Brandon Wimmer – Saving the Best for Last!
(Bill W) June 15, 2009 – Brandon Wimmer and the Rick Ferkel #0 team saved the best for last in the weekend’s three-race tour of central Pennsylvania. A drive from 17th to 7th at the Central PA Speedway near Clearfield capped off the weekend with the All Star Circuit of Champions. The team will use the finish as motivation heading into Ohio Speedweek which gets underway this Friday night.
Things didn’t start so well with a visit to Williams Grove Speedway near Mechanicsburg. After a decent qualifying effort (15th) in the 37-car field, things went a bit downhill in the heat and B main. “We had a really bad start in the heat race that I thought may be called back, but for whatever reason, they let it go,” says the Fairmount, Indiana driver. “That really hurt us. Then we were running in a transfer spot in the B and ran out of fuel. It was one of those nights.”
It was on to Lincoln Speedway near Abbottstown on Saturday. It would be the first full night of racing for Brandon at the 1/3 mile oval. He qualified 17th out of the 34 cars assembled. “We really struggled in the heat,” says Brandon. “After a two hour rain delay, we were able to qualify for the feature through the B (finishing 3rd).”
Starting from outside of row eight, Brandon advanced as far as eleventh before settling for fifteenth. “The track slicked off a little more than we thought it would, and we never really gained any ground,” he says. “When you are racing with the caliber of cars we are, you have to be on your game, and we weren’t.”
Things changed for the better at the Central PA Speedway on Sunday. Brandon qualified 18th out of the 35 cars assembled on the uniquely shaped oval. “It’s almost like a circle,” he says. “You seem to be turning all the time. We didn’t qualify real well, but we did a nice job of adjusting to the track as the night went on. We had a vibration in qualifying, and we were looking over the car. We found out the brake caliper and come undone from the rear-end.”
After winning his heat race, Brandon lined up inside row nine for the main event. “We really got going well,” he says. “We shot up to fifth. We had a red flag fuel stop with a two laps to go. Our brakes went out on us at that point. The fitting on the new caliper we had put on had come loose. The track was pretty rough, and things like that can happen with a rough track. That allowed (Fred) Rahmer and Greg Wilson to get back by us. We were happy with the finish; there were a lot of good cars there.”
Brandon and Rick were happy with Sunday night’s result. “It was a good way to end things, with our big week ahead of us,” says Brandon. “We’re feeling good heading into Speedweek.”
Ohio Speedweek gets underway at Attica Raceway Park on Friday, and then travels to Eldora (Rossburg) Speedway on Saturday, Millstream (Findlay) Speedway on Sunday, Wayne County (Orrville) Speedway on Monday, Hilltop (Millersburg) Speedway on Tuesday, Waynesfield Speedway on Wednesday, Limaland (Lima) Motorsports Park on Friday, and concludes Saturday, June 27 at Fremont Speedway.
Brandon and Rick Ferkel would like to thank the following sponsors for all their help: Shorty’s Truck Repair, Smith’s Farm, Goodyear Tires, Griff’s Engines, Kear’s Speed Shop, Huggins Cams, BRODIX Heads, Barnes Oil Pumps, Prism Lubricants, Zeis Land Development, Butlerbuilt, Simpson, Winning With Wellness and WRT Web Designs.
Photo -
Brandon races at Williams Grove (Speedwerx-Jason McConnell Photo)
Submitted By: Bill Wright