Ryan Lawler wanted nothing more than to get his ASA Late Model Series season back on track at Iowa Speedway on May 19th. Everything else he’s done this season has turned to gold, including his win in the first PASS South race of the year at Hickory Motor Speedway (NC). The only problem with his season so far has been his lack of luck in the ASALM ranks.
Lawler and the Lawler Motorsports team battled an ill-handling car early on at Iowa, a track that the team had never visited before. It took them the entire practice session to get the car dialed in and he started on his way towards a strong finish as the race went on, but a late mechanical issue forced Lawler out of the race and to a 22nd-place finish.
“We struggled all weekend from the time we unloaded,” said Lawler. “The car was just bad loose. Normally I like a loose racecar, but I mean this thing was loose. I about busted my butt 15 or 20 times. We kept working on it and working on it and got it decent for qualifying.
“We qualified sixth. I’m not sure how that happened, but we did. But in the race, in the first 50 laps, I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. It was rough. We made it to the first break and brought it in and made some changes. It was still loose on the bottom, but I found something that was working for me on the outside. I picked up a couple spots and got up to the back side of the top-10.”
Lawler had his #131 machine rolling towards a top-10 run, but on the final race break at lap 100 of 150, things went awry.
“On the last break, the alternator must’ve gone bad. We couldn’t get it fired and we couldn’t even push start it. We didn’t have enough voltage to get it cranked. It was a pretty tough weekend, but we thought we were going to turn it around and have a good top-10 finish.
“But in the end, I learned a few things at Iowa. Having a not-so-good racecar like this taught me more about patience throughout the race and riding it out until the first pit stop for adjustments. I just tried to get something out of nothing. My dad always told me that when you’re driving bad racecars every week, you can take advantage of a good one when you get one of those. Hopefully we’ll have one of those good racecars at Anderson.”
Lawler will be out to make it two-straight wins to kick off the PASS South Super Late Model season on June 2nd at Anderson Speedway.
