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Austin’s night ends with a “bang” before Fireworks Show begins! Concord, N.C. (6/30/09)
Week 4 of the
“Summer Shoot-out Series” at the Lowes Motor Speedway, Tuesday
night, had its share of highs and lows for Austin After winning his heat race in front of a packed grandstand earlier in the night, over point’s chaser Evan Bell, Austin felt he was in good shape going into the 20 lap Feature Event later in the evening. “Winning the heat race was a good gauge on how we stacked up against the competition assembled here this evening. Our lap times were the fastest recorded for the evening and beating Evan proved to me, and my team, that we had what it took to get the job done as the evening progressed. The car was on rails”, stated Austin. The “fireworks” started early, come feature time, as Austin lined up in 6th position for the start. One lap into the “feature” there was a huge pileup between turns 3 and 4 when Even Bell made contact with Justin Carroll in front of Austin, who was able to snake his way through the may lay with included the cars of 6 other competitors. “At the start I saw the accident unfolding as we entered turn 3. The 97 car (Evan Bell) got into the 57 of Carroll and I moved up a lane to miss the wreck that was unfolding. I went wide and high out of the grove and ran off of the track and threw the grass to miss the crash. At that point all I wanted to do was to keep from making any contact and not spin out and get caught up in the wreck. I was very fortunate not to be collected and not have any damage done to my car”, Austin said. On the restart Austin lined up in 5th place behind race leader Reid Wilson, 2nd place Matt Snyder, 2 time winner Matt Linker, with Evan Bell 4th. When the green fell it did not take long before the top 5 got shuffled. Bell, Linker, and Austin broke free from the pack and by lap 9 the three drivers had a battle of their own, which had most of the crowd standing on their feet cheering them on. On lap 11 Austin slipped past Linker going down the backstretch and then set his sights on Bell for the top spot. On lap12 Linker, who came out of turn 2 wide, made heavy contact with the wall and headed to the garage area, ending his drive for the evening. Austin applied heavy pressure to Bell as the 2 drivers began to have a classic battle between them. As Austin pulled along side of Bell coming out of turn 2 and down the backstretch for the lead on lap 14 his car pick up a heavy skip in the engine. A lap later the “miss” began to get worse and Austin was losing valuable track position as the race wound down. “When I went to make my move on Evan for the top spot I heard the engine change “pitch” and I knew then we were in trouble. I lost a cylinder and was down on power, so I just pulled to the outside of the racing groove and hung on to the finish”, said Austin. At the finish Evan Bell collected his second win of the “Summer Shoot-out Series” at the Lowes Motor Speedway and took back the points lead, followed by lady racer Annabeth Barnes in second Luke Demis 3rd, Justin Carroll who rebound from his lap 1 incident for fourth and Reid Wilson rounding out the top 5. In the end Austin was able to “hang” to finish 11th and relinquish the points lead to Evan Bell. “That’s racing” summed up Austin. “We had a great car that was capable of winning tonight, but we just fell a little short of our goal. A broken valve spring forced us to lose power and we did everything that we could do as a team tonight”. “Week 5 ought to be good next week, being it is “double point’s night. We are not out of this thing by any means. We’ll go home tonight and work on our car and prepare for next week. This just made our team stronger and I am hungry”, Austin concluded. Austin would like to thank his Team and all his marketing partners for their support: FIREFOLD.com, Rifenburg Construction, Scotty’s Fashions, Finger Food Products, Pizza Logs, Walker Lawn Mowers by GHS, Mohegan Sun Casino & Resorts, Micro Armor, AutoTrader.com, Sweeteners Plus, Calico High Performance Coatings, A.M Smith Electric, Razoos Cajun Eatery, The Brake Man, Coconut Island, Thermal Control Products, Lake Norman Soda Blasters, Energy Logic, TruckSavvy.com, John Davidson Racing Media, J. Edwards Designs, Performance Prime and Charlie Langenstein Speed Shop. For more information about Austin, his Team and sponsors, please visit our website at www.austinlangenstein.com. KAR Racing Communications, Press Release |
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Langenstein, driver of the #7 FIREFOLD.Com “Young Guns” Series
Bandolero.