Though far from a rookie to sprint car racing, Justyn Cox capped off his first full season with the King of the West 410ci Sprint Car Series on Saturday night by finishing third in the overall point standings and earning Rookie of the Year honors.
“It was a great season for our team running weekly with the KWS,” Cox said. “We really came alive toward the end of the season and it has us all anxious for 2017.”
With 30 cars on hand for the final series event of the season, Cox would open his night up by timing in 15th fastest on a track that was extremely slick and tricky early in the night.
Finishing second in his heat race, the Clarksburg, CA driver would move into the 30-lap feature event where he would grid the field form the seventh row. With a car getting over on the start of the race, Cox would get a bit of the action, as he would pick up damage to his car’s nose wing.
Opting to stay on the speedway, Cox would get going in the early stages of the race as he would work his way up to the seventh spot in an extended green flag run. As the rack continued to go away as the race went on, Cox would fade a bit as he would slip back to the 10th position.
A couple of late restarts gave Cox a couple of chances to make some moves, but with his tires pretty burned off, he would hang on to finish in the 10th spot.
Also competing with the Civil War Series on this night, Cox would time in 11th fastest in his qualifying flight. Lining up sixth in his heat race, Cox would work his way up to the fourth spot before some incidental contact would cause his machine to spin around.
Finishing sixth in the heat, Cox would take a trip to the ‘B’ main where a sixth place finish would put him in the 30-lap feature event.
Lining up at the tail end of the field, Cox would feel contact from another competitor on a restart and it would result into his machine getting into the wall and going over, thus bringing his feature to an early end.
“Though our stats aren’t where we had hoped they would be, I felt like we had a really fast car night in and night out,” Cox added. “Now we will go to work on our cars for next year and wait for schedules to come out before we put our schedule together. Thanks to our fans for the support, and our partners for continuing to back us.”
The Cox Racing team would like to thank Berco Redwood, Berry Lumber, Trex, PM Truck Repair, LRB, Konnected, Sacramento Theatrical Lighting, College Cyclery, JRD Endeavors, VSR, ART, K&N Performance, Justice Brothers, Cheetah IV Racing, E-ST Garage, Worton Designs, Manzer Motorsports, Swimming Pool Perfections, and Tim’s Hot Rod Shop for their support in 2016!