[Task Force]

KYLE HAMILTON HAS GOOD RUN AT IOWA COME TO PREMATURE END
By Zach Tasker

Optimism was high for the 6R/Hamilton Racing team heading into the June 20 running of the Casey’s General Stores 100 at the Iowa Speedway for the USAC Silver Crown Series. Hamilton, who has multiple laps of racing a national midget at the 7/8-mile paved oval, was aiming for a strong finish in the Silver Crown Car.

The afternoon started out good for the Danville, Indiana native as he set the 5th quickest time in the opening practice session with a car that was just a little free on the exit of turn 4. After some adjustments from the hard working crew, “The Professor” would set the 2nd quickest time in qualifying with a lap of 22.440 seconds just missing out on Pole, which was won by Kody Swanson.

Hamilton had a game plan set for the 100 lap feature, he was going to try to pace himself around the world’s fastest short track and then hit the go button the second half of the race. However something was quickly amiss for the multiple time USAC Honda National Midget Series feature winner, he quickly started fading backward from his outside front row starting spot. The cars handling rapidly began to deteriorate as each lap went by. On lap 15 the car violently stepped out on Kyle entering turn number 3. The Purdue University graduate had no control as the right rear tire finally went down and sent the car into a spin drilling the outside SAFER barrier with the front end of the open-wheel machine. Hamilton would be ok but out of the race and credited with a 13th place finish.

This is the 2nd straight USAC Silver Crown Series race the driver of the #33 Jet Star/Curtis Motor Sales/Simpson Racing/Advanced Racing Suspension Beast/TRD-Toyota had back luck in after proving to be fast early on. Back on May 1 at Toledo Speedway the car suffered a fuel pump failure while running in the top 5. “It was really cool to run up front in qualifying because we really struggled in practice. I know personally I can do it here on pavement we have just been fighting our equipment and we finally got a good set up under our belt and we qualified 2nd so that was really a confidence booster for our team and at least lets us know we can compete we these guys. Hindsight is 20/20 but I think my right rear was starting to go down several laps before that because I started dropping like a rock and then all of the sudden it just busted, the right rear just busted off the rim and I spun it out into the wall pretty hard. You don’t usually wreck pretty soft at Iowa, it was a pretty hard hit.”

The 2nd generation racer is eager to get back on track to put these early season woes behind him and refuses to let these finishes break his spirit. “We need to have a good run. The Little 500 is the only good run we have had. We need to have a couple good runs and we need to just keep working our butts off at the shop, that’s all you can do at this point.”

The 6R/Hamilton Racing team will skip the upcoming USAC Silver Crown Series race at the Terre Haute Action Track to regroup from the damage caused at Iowa Speedway. Their next event will be the July 23 Silver Crown series race at the Lucas Oil Raceway in Brownsburg, Indiana for the J.D. Byrider 100/Rich Vogler Classic. That will be a busy week for Kyle and the team as they will also compete on Saturday July 25 at the Lincoln Tech Indianapolis Speedrome for the inaugural Tony Stewart Midget Classic, for live updates for these races and throughout the whole season, like Kyle Hamilton Racing on Facebook.

[Task Force]

Here is Kyle's latest driver blog for Open-Wheels.com!

http://open-wheels.com/?p=1616