PETERSEN MEDIA
Though his results were not what he was looking for, Willie Croft wasn’t completely disappointed with his Fall Nationals effort over the weekend.
“We did not have the best results, but the way the track was both night’s, we were one of the few cars that passed and moved forward, and we will certainly take that,” he said.
On a hooked up, and at times sloppy, track on Friday night, Croft timed his Tri-C Machine/JRI Shocks/NAAKE Suspension entry in fifth fastest, putting him in the first heat.
Lining up in the second row of his heat race, Croft slipped to the fifth spot on a very fast, and narrow track, earning a transfer spot, but failed to qualify for the Dash, putting him in the sixth row for the feature event.
On a track that was still heavy, and saw many guys run the bottom, Croft elected to move to the top shelf, and try to gain spots.
Though he was able to go in and pick guys off slowly as they were forced to check up to run the bottom, they were able to get a little more grip than Croft, and ultimately get him back.
Continuing to try and make something happen, rather than get in line, Croft would get up as high as the 12th spot, and when the checkered fell he was in the 14th spot.
“The way the surface was, it seemed like most everyone wanted to work the bottom of the speedway,” Croft said. “Rather than just follow I did everything I could to make the top work, and we sort of bounced back and forth between 12th, and where we finished.”
Back in action on Saturday night, the track surface was completely different than Friday’s surface, but it wasn’t much better.
Croft again timed in well, as he was fourth fastest in time trials, putting him in the fourth heat.
On a very slick and tricky track in heat race action, Croft again finished fifth in his heat, but was forced to run the B Main, as 51 cars featured a five-heat race format.
Finishing third in the B, Croft transferred to the feature event, but he was behind the 12 Dash cars, and lined up 14th.
On the third lap, Croft came to a stop with a steering issue, and fortunately it was not as bad as first thought, and he was able to restart, thought it was from the back of the pack on a rubbered up racetrack.
Though most cars made no passes, Croft was able to gain a handful of spots, as he worked up to the 18th spot when the checkered flew.
“We were able to pass cars in the rubber, and that was good,” he said. “I thought I had a much worse issue than I actually did early in the race, so that put us pack, and though we did pass a few cars, I knew it would be very tough to get a ton of spots with the rubber being down.”
Croft was also in action on Wednesday with the Civil War series, where he scored a sixth place finish.
The Tri-C Motorsports team would like to thank Tri-C Machine, JRI Shocks, NAAKE Suspension, Holey Smokes BBQ, The Christian Stover Foundation, ButlerBuilt, Arai, Brown and Miller, Sander Engineering, FK Rod Ends, Hinchman Indy, Schoenfeld, K&N, Smith Precision Products, A.R.T., Kaeding Performance, Dan Olson Products, Vortex Wings, AIC Powdercoating, and GUTS for their support in 2013.
2013 BY THE NUMBERS: Races-49, Wins-5, Top 5’s-20, Top 10’s-29.
ON TAP: Croft will return to action on the 12th of October at the King’s Speedway for the Cotton Classic.
STAY CONNECTED: Stay connected with Willie Croft Racing by visiting www.williecroftracing.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @wcroft29.