From Inside Line Promotions
Mesquite, TX — (March 23, 2014) — Tony Bruce Jr. put together a clean sweep last Friday to score his first Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour victory of the year.
The win was his first with the premier 360ci sprint car series at Devil’s Bowl Speedway since 2008 and catapulted his One 8 Motorsports team to sixth in the championship standings after a rough start to the season.
“It’s huge to get a win this early,” he said. “The hardest thing to do is get the first one out of the way. Whenever you get the first one out of the way early in the season it helps. It gets you fired back up for the season, especially as tough as it was at Cocopah and down in Beaumont.”
On Friday, Bruce Jr. survived a pair of dicey starts to his heat race, which he began on the inside of the second row, en route to picking up the win. That earned him enough points to advance to the feature redraw.
“The first couple of starts were pretty hairy,” he said. “You get that sometimes whenever it’s drivers’ first race of the season. Everybody is ancy and trying to go for it on the first lap. There were some crashes we were able to avoid. We got a front row starting spot and took advantage of it.”
Bruce Jr. then pulled the No. 1 in the redraw, which gave him the pole for the 25-lap feature.
“Any time you get a front row starting spot in the A Main it’s disappointing if you don’t win,” he said. “I felt like regardless of what kind of track we would have had, our car was dialed in about as good as you could get it. Lap after lap all I had to do was make sure I hit my marks and didn’t screw up.”
Bruce Jr. did just that and maneuvered throughout traffic flawlessly.
“Whenever we got to lapped traffic, as soon as I got to a car I could pass them,” he said. “That’s always a key whenever you get to traffic – how well do you get through it. Our car was working good on the top in turns three and four and pretty much everybody else had to go to the bottom.”
Despite a late caution, which erased a solid lead, Bruce Jr. pulled away to the triumph. It also locked him into the feature redraw for Saturday’s race, which was postponed a week because of the threat of rain.
Bruce Jr. will return to Devil’s Bowl Speedway this Saturday for the conclusion of the Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour doubleheader. He is assured to start in the first four rows of the main event.
“It’s nice to be locked in,” he said. “The thing that’s going to be tough is waiting the whole week knowing the only thing we’ll get is four laps of hot laps and then the A Main. But I’d much rather have a shorter night than a long one.”
QUICK RESULTS –
March 21 – Devil’s Bowl Speedway in Mesquite, Texas – Heat race: 1 (3); Feature: 1 (1).
SEASON STATS –
4 races, 1 win, 1 top five, 2 top 10s, 2 top 15s, 3 top 20s
UP NEXT –
Saturday at Devil’s Bowl Speedway in Mesquite, Texas, with the Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour
LIVE COVERAGE –
To keep up to speed with Bruce Jr. at every Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour event, visit http://www.RacinBoys.com for free, live audio. Additionally, RacinBoys will provide live Pay-Per-View video at select races.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS –
Website: http://www.TonyBruceJr.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/