Dating back to last September, Ryan Lawler has found a home in victory lane at Hickory Motor Speedway (NC). With a win there in the PASS South Super Late Model tour event at Hickory last September and the first race of the 2007 year, Lawler was on top of his game at the historic track.
Since then, however, Hickory has been full of headaches for the young Texan. Just a few weeks ago, Lawler suffered alternator problems in another PASS South race at Hickory while leading. On Saturday, October 20th, Lawler had a good run going in the ASA Late Models Southern Division event, even leading at one point late in the race, but a caution-filled event forced the #31 machine out of fuel just a few laps short of the finish.
“It was a tough deal,” said Lawler. “We were junk in practice, actually. We never just hit it. We threw
something crazy at it in qualifying and we ended up qualifying third. That was kind of unusual because with
that type of car, we’re normally better than that at Hickory. They inverted six, so we started fourth.
“In the race, we kind of rode in line for a while, but we never really had any green runs. The first long, green run was maybe 20 laps and that’s when I was able to come up to the lead. Beau Slocumb and I got into it a little earlier in the race. He kind of squeezed me up into the wall once, then I kind of returned the favor. He ended up behind me with 10 to go, and he got me back again. I guess that’s how it goes. Then they tried to restart with five to go or three to go, but I started to run out of fuel.”
Lawler wound up with an 11th-place finish at Hickory. He’ll be out for a better result on Saturday, October 27th, when he hopes to secure the PASS South SLM Championship in “The Howler” 150-lap event at Greenville-Pickens Speedway (SC).
