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MARS at Highland Speedway Recap

Saturday found the BAR31 team at the ¼ mile, semi-banked oval track, the World-Famous Highland Speedway in Illinois.

For the second night in a row, the 31AUS car was the fastest, with a lap of 12.916, the only sub-13-second lap. Rounding out the top five in qualifying were Rodney Melvin, Jason Feger, Bob Gardner and Tanner English.

Heat one had Kye on the pole with Bob Gardner beside him and Ryan Unzicker behind him. Gardner used the high line to get past Kye, which left Kye and Unzicker battling for second. Coming off two and down the back stretch, Blight and Unzicker had slight contact, but it was enough to fold the left fender under the front tire of Unzicker’s car. The caution flew, Unzicker went into the hot pit, pulled the fender off and started on the tail. When the checkered flag fell, it was Gardner, Blight, Daryn Klein, Unzicker and Rusty Griffaw. The top two went to the redraw, and Kye drew the #1 pill.

The feature lineup had English on the outside pole, Feger, Mike Harrison, Melvin and Gardner in the top three rows. English was called for a jump start on the initial green flag but was allowed to keep his position. The second try at the green was a good race down the front stretch and thru one and two, but English had the high line going, and was able to take the lead at the end of the first lap. An early caution for a car stopped on the back stretch on lap 8 slowed the field down. At that time, the BAR31 team was running 4th behind English, Harrison, and Feger. A red flag happened on lap 10 when the 6K of Michael Kloos ended up on his lid on the front stretch. When the green flag flew again, Kye was in 5th position beside Rodney Melvin. On lap 14, Melvin got sideways in front of Kye, but luckily no one got into him, and the green stayed out. With 13 laps left, English slowed down for a left rear tire, and Kye went up against the wall to keep off of him. On the restart, Kye was on the outside and got around Harrison for 2nd place and was ripping the high side, when Blaze Burwell caused a caution which slowed the field down once again. Kye chose the high side, but Harrison was ready for him this time and came up on the 31AUS to take the position. A flat left front tire left the team in 7th position when the checker flag flew.

The BAR31 Team would like to thank the staff of the MARS series as well as everyone at Tri-City Speedway and Highland Speedway for a great weekend of racing. Next up for the team will be the World of Outlaws race at Davenport Speedway.

And as always, thank you to our partners, BAR31, Rocket Chassis, AccuForce Dynos & Testers, Durham Racing Engines, Inc. and My Race Pass.

Photo credit: Josh James Artwork

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