Archive for category: Sprint Cars

Wednesday night at The Dirt Track at Charlotte was qualifying night for Reinhardt and the Capitol Custom Coaches & Trailers, Coors Banquet Beer, E-Z-GO Golf Cars, Henry’s Wrecker Service No.91 team.  Two rounds of time trials would set the stage for their Thursday and Friday night preliminary programs.  Kyle turned in the 12th quickest and 7th quickest laps respectively for those nights, both in Group B qualifying.

Reinhardt lined up 6th in his Thursday night heat race, needing to make the top five to transfer directly to the night’s main event, but he missed that transfer by one spot.  He needed a run from 6th in the B-main into a top-four finishing position to find his way in, but it didn’t happen.

An 8th-place finish in Thursday’s B-main brought an end to his night.  On the bright side, a lot was learned that would pay dividends the remainder of the week.

Reinhardt kicked off Friday night in a better position, turning a 4th starting spot into a 3rd place heat race finish, locking himself into the A-main.  

In Friday’s 25-lap A-main, the Neptune City, NJ native started moving forward from his 10th starting spot and was running as high as 7th on lap sixteen.  Reinhardt lost a couple of spots during some tight battles in the closing laps but still managed a very solid 10th-place run.

Following Friday’s program, points earned over the first three nights were tallied.  The result was a 5th starting spot in neat number two for Reinhardt.  He held 5th, the final transfer spot, for the first few laps but eventually, Donny Schatz wrestled it away, relegating the No.91 to the B-main for his final shot to make Saturday’s finale.

Reinhardt started outside the front row in the 12-lap B-main and brought home a 3rd-place finish to make the show.  He went on to turn in a 19th-place finish in the final World of Outlaws A-main of the season.

“I’m pretty pleased with our World Finals showing, especially with an Outlaw top ten!”, a happy Reinhard commented.

“I think Thursday we just didn’t make the right decisions to the car with so few laps but we got it better for the rest of the weekend, so it was a solid week for sure.”

The Dirty Jersey weekend kicked off with two qualifying sessions on Friday night, rewarding the fast qualifier in each session with a guaranteed starting spot no worse than 8th in Saturday’s finale.

Reinhardt clocked in 3rd quickest in the first session and then went to the top of the speed chart in the second session to claim one of the locked-in spots for his Capitol Custom Coaches & Trailers, Coors Banquet Beer, E-Z-GO Golf Cars, Henry’s Wrecker Service No.91 team.

Saturday’s show provided Reinhardt with a chance to improve on his worst-case 8th starting spot and he took full advantage.  Drivers earned points through qualifying and passing points in heat races.  After that, the top twenty would go to the A-main lineup and the top six would go to a dash to sort out the first three rows.

Reinhardt was fast once again in qualifying, posting the 3rd quickest trip around the Swedesboro, NJ oval.  In his heat race, he drove from 6th to 4th, good enough to rank him 5th in the overall point standings at the conclusion of all qualifying events.

Reinhardt drew the number three pill for the dash lineup and posted a 3rd place finish in the 6-lap dash, earning the inside row two starting spot for the 30-lap finale.

The initial start of the feature saw contact between the two front-row cars which resulted in a caution for outside starter Ryan Smith.  The caution quickly became a red flag for a melee in turn two.  The ensuing restart put Reinhardt on the outside front row.

The Neptune City, NJ native settled into 2nd for the opening laps before another restart gave him a good shot at leader Justin Whittall.  Reinhardt cleared Whittall on the high side off of turn two and had the advantage into turn three.  However, Whittall drove in hard under him and reclaimed the top spot off of turn four.

Reinhardt got close one more time but it wasn’t enough to wrestle the spot away.  He held on the rest of the way, fending off challenges by Daison Pursley and Danny Dietrich, to claim the runner-up finish.

“I don’t have an answer for why we are so good here but we are definitely one of the cars to beat when we unload here.   It’s great to run well at home with so many friends and family in the stands.”, Reinhardt commented.

“I got in front of Justin (Whittall) once but he was pretty strong and got back by me.  When we got into traffic I thought I would get another shot at him but the lapped cars followed him up the track and that affected my air.  They were running their race too, so it’s just part of it.”

“He (Justin) was so good in clean air and I blistered my tires trying to get to him.  At that point, I was just protecting to make sure I held on to second.  I knew I had to stick to the top and keep up my momentum.  If something happens to the leader, you want to be in position to take advantage of it.”

Reinhardt hasn’t found victory lane this year yet after a three-win season in 2023.

“We had a really good year last year but we struggled at the beginning of this year.  I took us a while to adjust and find our speed after some of the changes to the tires, wickerbill, etc.  We’ve turned it around and put a lot of good runs together since mid-August though.  I wish we had a win but I’m happy with how strong we have been the last two months.”, Reinhardt shared.

“We will head to Charlotte and see what we can do at the World Finals, then we will come back home and wrap up our season at BAPS Motor Speedway.”