Ryan Lawler goes to every race he enters pumped up and ready to win. The desire to leave whatever track he visits with the winner’s laurels is what fuels the young Colleyville, Texas native.
But sometimes, as can happen in racing, circumstances beyond the driver’s control can keep him out of victory lane. Take, for instance, when Mother Nature intervenes and makes practice time limited at a tough bullring like Martinsville Speedway in Virginia during the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event on October 17th and 18th.
Lawler, driving the #08 GunBroker.com Dodge for SS GreenLight Racing, was excited about his maiden voyage aboard that particular truck at Martinsville, but the limited practice time caused by the rain showers that plagued the early part of the weekend put Lawler and the team behind the eight-ball early. When all was said and done, the handling issues in the race forced Lawler to fight for a 27th-place finish at the checkered flag.
“With it raining like it did, that really hurt us,” said Lawler. “We weren’t able to get all the practice in that we would’ve liked to have had. We got to test over at Caraway (NC), which helped, but we weren’t racing at Caraway.
“We only had an hour of practice. We fought some other problems other than handling, so we had to address those before we could go after the handling. Practice was over before we could even figure those out. We were just off a little bit. We didn’t get to work on the truck at all. The thing was too tight in the corners. I went into the race with high hopes and we had a really good test at Caraway. I was really happy to be driving the GunBroker.com Dodge, but it didn’t quite work out like we planned.”
Lawler will return to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series ranks on Friday, October 31st at his home track, Texas Motor Speedway. Stay tuned to RyanLawler.net for a big announcement regarding Lawler’s upcoming Texas homecoming.
