By Mike Spieker | SpiekerPromotions@gmail.com HARWOOD, ND (August 3) - It’s time once again for that magical weekend in August where the entire Sprint Car world migrates to the small town of Knoxville, Iowa for the greatest 10 day stretch of racing seen all year long. For the Lee Grosz Racing team it’s a time of opportunity as they set their sights on having a strong showing in their sport’s biggest race; the Arnold Motor Supply 360 Knoxville Nationals. For the small family race team based out of Harwood, ND, the 360 Knoxville Nationals are the most anticipated event on their schedule each year, and for good reason. Lee has had some impressive runs at the Nationals, including his preliminary night feature win back in 2011. In order to repeat that effort and make it into Saturday night’s A-main, Lee says it all comes down to those two qualification laps on your preliminary night. “Time Trials decide your whole weekend,” he said. “If you can time in 10th to 15th that’s a pretty good spot to be in because you don’t get stuck in the invert for your heat race and have to start in the back. They take the top four in your heat race so if you can start outside the second row you just have to capitalize. If you qualify in the top 15 you’ll usually start in the first couple rows of the feature, which should put you in a pretty good spot if you can hold on.” For the past two weeks the team has been making the over 1,000-mile round trip haul to Knoxville to prepare specifically for the 360 Nationals. “I feel that we have learned a lot these past couple of weeks,” continued Lee. “We changed something on the car every time we hit the track just to learn. I think the changes we made from last week to this week should help us out quite a bit.” WEEKEND RECAP: Last Friday night the Hi-10 Sports Center/J&J Auto Racing team made the trek out to Jackson Motorplex. Lee finish second in his heat and battled up at the front of the field during the main event. “We started eighth and got a pretty good start. I drove right through the middle and ended up in about fourth in the first corner. I got up to second and had a pretty good run off of turn four and was about to make a move on [Gregg] Bakker [for the lead], but he moved up right in front of me in turn one and took my line away. When that happened I jumped the cushion and fell back sixth. I felt like we had a good shot at winning that one.” Before the checkers flew, Lee was able to regain a position to round out the top five. On Saturday night the team unloaded at the Marion County Fairgrounds for a night of racing at Knoxville Raceway. “We started 22nd in the feature and finished 14th,” said Lee. “I think we were a little bit better than 14th, though. We were rolling pretty good in the middle of the race, but kept getting slowed by the cautions. Usually I’m not very good at running the bottom at Knoxville, but the car felt good down there so we were able to take away few positives from the night that we can use this weekend.” Lee’s qualifying night for the 26th annual Arnold Motor Supply 360 Knoxville Nationals will be Friday night (August 5th). If you can’t make it there, be sure to watch live all weekend long on thecushion.com.
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2021 STATS:Races: 13
Wins: 1 Top Fives: 6 Top Tens: 11 AuthorMike Spieker Follow us!Archives
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