From Gary Thomas, image courtesy of John’s Racing Photos
Las Vegas, NV –Continuing to gain experience behind the wheel of a 410 winged sprint car 15-year-old Zach Zimmerly made the trip to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway this past Friday evening and made the most of the outing by qualifying solidly and making the main event in what was his first career start on a half-mile dirt track.
The World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series sanctioned event at the Dirt Track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was Zimmerly’s first start of the year with the “Greatest Show on Dirt” during what is the beginning of his sophomore season in sprint car racing.
The show in “Sin City” marked the third event of the season for the World of Outlaws and featured a 28-car field on hand for the night’s action, which was part of the Las Vegas Super Sprint Classic. The West Linn, Oregon driver showed early on that he was able to quickly adapt to the intimidating half-mile by turning the ninth fastest time in hot laps and then backing it up in qualifying by clocking the 10th quickest lap of the night aboard the Mcmillen Motorsports, Fire-Down Graphics, Douglas Wheel Technologies No. 94.
It then put Zimmerly on the pole of the night’s opening heat race, but with the high-line seeming to be the place to be he would drop to third on the start behind Brad Sweet and Terry McCarl. The youngster would soon have to deal with a fast moving Fred Rahmer and the Pennsylvania legend would take a couple peaks at him, but Zimmerly remained calm and drove smooth over the remaining laps to hang onto third and transfer the Christian Stover Foundation, Butler Built Performance, A.R.T. Enterprise sprinter into the main event.
Lining-up in the 12th position for the 30-lap feature Zimmerly would look to learn as much as possible and eventually finished the contest in the 20th position, but the experience gained by running with the world’s best sprint car drivers is certainly an invaluable asset for the 15-year-old racer. “Obviously I would have liked to finish a little better in the main event, but with this being my first time on a half-mile completing all the laps was a great experience and I really enjoyed running the track,” he said. “These guys are so good out here that you really have to be perfect every time you hit the track and you can learn a lot by racing with them. We also made the switch to A.R.T. Chassis in the off-season and are definitely trying to get as many laps as possible so we’re happy with how the night went overall.”
Next up for Zimmerly will be this weekend’s double-header event with the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series at the Groppetti Automotive Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, California. The Oregon driver made a pair of starts at the 1/3 mile clay oval last season and will join a talented cast of teams this Friday and Saturday, which will be led into town by the Tony Stewart Racing duo of Steve Kinser and Donny Schatz, who are separated by just two-points at the top of the WOO standings. Gates open at 5pm each night and racing is set for 7. For more info on the event visit http://www.thunderbowlraceway.com
The early season plans for Zimmerly and Mcmillen Motorsports will find the the team racing in California for much of the spring competing with the Golden State Challenge King of California Sprint Car Series. “I really like running the 410 the most so that’s what we’re going to be focusing on this year,” said Zimmerly. “I’m really excited after getting a year of experience under my belt and hopefully we can start off strong in the early months and keep it up throughout the season.”
Follow Zach Zimmerly Racing on twitter at http://twitter.com/ZZR94 and for more news, pictures and information on the young driver log onto http://www.zachzimmerly.com