[Task Force]

Rumble in Fort Wayne cut short for Nick Hamilton and Mel Kenyon
By Zach Tasker

Expectations were high for 18-year-old racing star Nick Hamilton heading into the 18th annual Rumble in Fort Wayne held inside the tight confines of the 1/7 mile concrete oval at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum. The Northern Indiana venue always provides great competition and helps break up the winter off season of racing.

After two top ten feature finishes in an underpowered car last year, Hamilton teamed up with the famous 3K racing team and legendary car owner Mel Kenyon. The driver from Danville, Indiana was ecstatic to team up with the winningest driver in midget racing history and was looking to drive to the front and be a potential feature winning contender both nights of racing this year.

The action would start on Saturday after a quick engine heat with the afternoon's first practice session. The 2014 STARS National Midget rookie of the year would turn 9 laps in the session with an unstable racecar as it bicycled multiple times in turns 3 and 4, however, he was able to hold off the number 63 of JP Crabtree until a last lap bump and run.

The crew made some adjustments for the day's final practice which made the car slightly more stable as this time the driver known as “Nick Nick boom” only bicycled a couple of times on corner exit and was able to hold off the number 49 of Dave Darland the entire 7 lap session.

Up next was qualifying which provided a unique format for this year’s Rumble, Lap 1 would be the time of record for Saturday’s program while lap 2 would count for Sundays racing action. This meant a driver had to be smooth and steady for both laps. Lap 1 would see Nick still fighting a loose racecar and turn a lap of 9.051 seconds, slotting into 33rd place. The 2nd and final lap would be over half a second quicker at 8.442 seconds, good enough for 24th position out of 42 entries.

All sights were then set on the heat race action. Hamilton was scheduled to roll off in 7th spot in the evenings 3rd heat race for national midgets, however, the team found a terminal engine problem that would put an end to the race weekend before it even started to get going.

The driver of the #61 Printing Image/Curtis Motor Sales Kenyon/Gaerte was understandably disappointed “It was just a few pretty small engines issues but they would take up enough time that we wouldn’t be able to put it together by tomorrow to put it into the show so we are just calling it quits for this weekend but it was a good opportunity and I had a lot of fun while we were at it but it sucks to end so short. There were a few different problems but the first practice session we were just trying to get used to the car, it wasn’t too bad, we went in the right direction for the next practice session and it was a lot faster but in qualifying something was wrong and the engine was cutting out a little bit. We knew something was wrong and we started checking all the oil coming out and noticed there was a bigger issue in the engine.”

The multiple time UAW America Made USSA Mel Kenyon Midget Series feature winner was still grateful for the opportunity to drive for a legend “The Kenyon’s gave me any drivers dream, I went to try to wipe off the car and they were like just back off that’s the workers job. Any driver just wants to show up with his helmet bag and race and that’s what they let me do and they worked hard to get it here and it ended short but we leave on good terms.”

For more information and updates on all of Nick and older brother Kyle Hamilton’s racing exploits, “like” Hamilton Brothers Racing on Facebook.



Photo credit: JessicaJ Photography