January 22, 2008

If you are going to get your first win you might as well make it a big one and that is just what the driver of the #91 did this past Saturday night. Tyler Brown won the first late model event of his career against some of the best drivers in the northern U.S.

Tyler and the team traveled to Lake Erie Speedway in Pennsylvania to compete in the 'Lake Erie 150' late model invitational. Twenty nine driver would qualify for the event including Marra Series & Lake Erie Speedway champion Will Thomas, second generation and track Champion John Gaunt jr. and numerous ASA Series regulars. In the first qualifying race Tyler would start on pole and never look back. He was challenged a few times throughout the race but the 2nd place car could not match the run off the corner that the 91 had "the car was so solid in the corners I could drive it on both the inside groove or outside" Brown said. Then when the 32 (John Gault jr.) caught the 2nd place car and started to battle for position Tyler was able to open up about a 3 car cushion on the closing laps to take the win.

The qualifying results would set the field for the 150 lap feature. With a random inversion of the top 12 Tyler would line up in 6th for the feature. Right off the start Tyler would pass 2 cars to sit comfortably in the 3rd spot until a restart on lap 25. On the restart Tyler was instructed by his crew chief not to battle too hard in the early stages instead save his tires for the later stages of the race, on the restart Tyler allowed 2 cars past and settled nose to tail in a 5 car train. On Lap 40 as Tyler the other top cars were starting to lap slower cars a lapped car came down on the 91 and shredded his front right tire forcing an unscheduled pit stop and sending him back to the tail end of the lead lap (24th)

From that point Tyler worked aggressively back to the 11th position before the checkers flew. After the race Tyler commented, "the car was amazing we had an all around good day. I know we had a top 5 car, but you can't help these sort of problems, I know if we hadn't had the 3 late cautions I would have finished inside the top 10 but the cautions slowed our momentum during the last 20 laps".

Watch for photos on www.tyler-brown.com in the near future.