[JessicaJ]

Third Race for Teare Takes Interesting Twist at Macon
By Jessica Jenkins

On a warm early Fall Saturday afternoon, Wyatt Teare and his family-owned team pulled into Macon Speedway with their yellow #5. It was just Teare's third race and his second at Macon following his debut at the 1/5th mile dirt track a month earlier. That first night in the POWRi/ILLINI D2 series he finished tenth in the feature by avoiding all trouble and finishing. A week later at Lincoln Speedway he gained nine positions and finished 13th. So fast forward three weeks to his most recent race and you can imagine his anticipation in returning to a track for the first time was pretty high.

Teare did everything he needed to in hot laps and the heat race as he got more comfortable in the car. The 20 year old started and finished seventh in the sole heat race before his night at Macon went in a pretty crazy direction. In the heat race the points leader experienced power steering problems and it was serious enough that the issue could not be repaired at the track. So Teare and his father agreed to swap cars with their friend, a move which put the Urbana, IL driver into the car that had won the heat going away.

The team prepared the orange/white 10b as best they could for the feature and Teare took off with the rest of the field. The power steering had gone out again on the pace laps and he drove three full laps before pulling off on the backstretch. Ultimately he finished fifth for the first top five finish of his young career.

Speaking about the car, Teare explained, "The way it handled was a little different. The track was really tacky, but we blew a shock in hot laps. [We] had to replace a shock and then went out to the heat. It was good in 3 and 4; 1 and 2 was real sticky and tacky [and I] couldn't really get it to float like I wanted it to. Then the feature came around and I kind of gave my car up for somebody to get points. But sometimes you have to do what you have to do. It [driving without power steering] was pretty tough. Being the third time in a car, it was kind of different to drive with the throttle. It was pretty fun though."

For pictures, videos updates and more information on Wyatt Teare, like him on Facebook at Facebook.com/TeareRacing87.