As the old saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas. For the Lone Star State native Ryan Lawler, the one thing that was Texas-sized on Saturday night was his amount of bad luck.
Lawler was pumped up going into the season-opening ASA Late Model Challenge Series 200-lap event at San Antonio Speedway in his home state and it showed early in the weekend. He had a lightning-quick car during practice, but tech issues and a couple of on-track skirmishes put a damper on Lawler’s homecoming.
“On Friday in practice, we were just getting our car dialed in and we actually unofficially set a track record,” said Lawler. “We were like two-tenths faster than anyone else all day, but then they were messing with us pretty good all day in tech. They changed the rule on the valance height, so we had some troubles with that. We had to change some stuff before qualifying and I think we ended up 13th.
“In the race we were just taking our time and I got up to seventh or eighth. Some guy dove under a guy up ahead of me and they went spinning up the racetrack. I was on the outside of somebody and was stuck so I got into them. That smashed up the air ducts on the front and had to come into the pits.”
But that’s not where the bad luck ended for Lawler. As the Lawler Motorsports team wrapped up the repairs to the car from the first crash, another incident brought the day to an end, resulting in a 24th-place finish.
“After the halfway break we were coming back up through. Then there was a big wreck off two and it was like Daytona - there was smoke everywhere. I went for a hole, but somebody hit me in the
Texas was not too kind to Ryan in the first ASA race of the year.
left-rear and turned me around and got stuffed in the wall. It was a bad deal. It was a wreckfest. It just wasn’t our night.
For Lawler, the bad luck cost him what could’ve been a hero’s homecoming.
“We had a good racecar. When we got caught up in that first deal, we had to come into the pits and come back up to the front. I think we were the only car that had something for Colt (James, the winner of the race).
“We were involved in two crashes but it could’ve been worse. We missed two or three wrecks throughout the night. It seemed like everything that happened out there happened right in front of us.”
Lawler will hope to bounce back in the next ASA Late Model Challenge Series event on March 31st at Music City Motorplex in Nashville, TN.
