1/4/2015
Craig Dollansky
Top-Ten in Inaugural Winter Heat Weekend
The much anticipated Winter Heat Sprint Car Showdown got underway on Friday for Craig Dollansky as he opened up his 2015 campaign in southern Arizona. Logging many miles from cold Indiana winter weather, the Destiny Motorsports #7 team reached sunny and warm temps at Cocopah Speedway for the inaugural running of the 5-day event.
With a strong field of 34 drivers on hand, the night began with heat one where Dollansky started on the pole and paced the field in the 8-lap event to score the win. In the second round of heat competition, the Aggressive Hydraulics backed entry lined up inside row three and advanced one spot coming home in 4th.
With points tallied and feature lineups set, ‘The Crowd Pleaser’ would start outside row three for the 30-lap A-Main. Following a caution with one lap complete, Dollansky restarted fifth but hit the inside berm when action resumed dropping a few positions. After another yellow came one lap later, tough luck found the MonDak Portables Maxim in turn three as Dollansky spun and too much damage from contact with another competitor would retire the #7 from action.
“We were working with our car as the night went on and I felt pretty decent early on and had good wing speed,” explained Dollansky. “As the wing speed dropped off and the track changed I started struggling pretty bad with the car. We started the feature off and weren’t very many laps into it before I spun out and ended our night.”
With Friday in the rearview mirror, the Destiny Motorsports team regrouped and made repairs and prepared for a new night of action on Saturday as they drew the nine pill to start inside row two of heat one.
Racing closely with Stevie Smith in the first round of heats, Dollansky finished in the runner-up position and then shifted attention to the second round of heats where the Rick Rogers Construction #7 would start outside row four. Using a powerful start to the 10-lap heat race, ‘The Crowd Pleaser’ rocketed around the outside to take the 2nd spot by the exit of turn two and once again finish in the runner-up.
In great position for Saturday’s main event, Dollansky took the green flag from outside row two. After a pair of cautions in the opening hand full of laps, the Elk River, Minnesota native ran fourth working the cushion in turns 1 & 2 and maneuvering high and low in turns 3 & 4 of the 3/8-mile oval. When action was halted by two more yellows at the halfway point on lap 15, Dollansky lost third to Stevie Smith four laps later but continued to run a strong race until the final laps when the right-rear tire began losing air pressure and the fuel tank started running dry as the Aggressive Hydraulics #7 lost a few positions in the closing laps crossing the line with a top-ten finish in 8th running on fumes.
“We made some progress and were going to get out of there with a top three finish but we can’t finish the race without fuel,” commented Dollansky. “With ten laps to go we had a couple holes in the right rear tire and we started running out of fuel with a couple laps to go. I think we could have hung on to third with the tire issue but we had a lot of yellow flag laps and we lost quite a few positions just trying to coast across the finish line those last few laps. As it was we ended up eighth and could of came out with a top three. Scott Benic and the rest of the team continue to do a great job and I’m encouraged by what we have going on and we’ll keep working hard at it.”
The Destiny Motorsports #7 team returns to Cocopah Speedway this week on Tuesday before wrapping up the Winter Heat Sprint Car Showdown on Friday and Saturday.
Article Credit: Reid VanEck
Submitted By: Craig Dollansky Racing
