Reinhardt Wraps Up Early Season in PA with Another Top 10

Kyle Reinhardt wrapped up his ‘preseason’ outings with a top-10 run at Lincoln Speedway Saturday night in the Weldon Sterner Memorial aboard his familiar Capitol Renegade / Capitol Custom Coaches & Trailers / Champion Hi-Tech Lubricants / J&J Auto Racing No.91.

It’s not really fair to refer to a string of tough races in Central PA as ‘preseason’.  Given the level of competition present, every race is a dogfight.  It was preseason in a sense though for Reinhardt, as he and his team have been working for the past few weeks to sharpen themselves and their equipment for their regular season with the Tezos All Star Circuit of Champions, which kicks off Friday, April 15th at Attica Raceway Park in Ohio.

April 9:  Weldon Sterner Memorial / Lincoln Speedway / Abbottstown, PA

      (43 cars, qualifying 2nd, heat 3rd, A-main 10th)

The lucrative Weldon Sterner Memorial event at Lincoln Speedway drew a quality field of 43 cars to compete for the $6,900 winner’s take.  Kyle Reinhardt was slotted 17th overall, part of group 1, for time trials.  He ripped off a lap of 13.851 to take the top spot on the chart.  Five cars later, Danny Dietrich knocked him from his perch, taking quick time by a mere 0.084 seconds.

The PA Speedweek format was in place for the night’s action, so four 10-lap heats were lined up with the four best times in each inverted for the start.  The top five from each race would transfer to the A-main, with two cars from each heat going to the redraw:  the winner and the fastest timer who transferred.

Reinhardt was able to advance from his number four starting spot to a 3rd place finish, thus transferring and putting himself in the redraw.  The results of the redraw made Reinhardt’s night a little tougher when he pulled the 8th starting spot.  

In the 35-lap feature event, Reinhardt moved into 7th at the drop of the green, but he slid backwards to 9th by the time the race had reached the halfway point.  He held his ground there until the final lap when Matt Campbell slipped by, relegating the Neptune City, NJ native to a 10th place finish.

“Time trials were something we definitely wanted to improve on from last year, so I feel like we’ve done that so far.  We’ve been timing really well and have had good speed early in the night.  Now we need to work on making the right decisions later in the night, so we can finish as well as we start“, Reinhardt explained.

Lincoln Speedway has been a challenging venue for Reinhardt in the past, so while the finish may have been a few spots shy of the goal Saturday night, it was a solid step forward for him and his team.  It also establishes a trend in the right direction when coupled with his 6th place finish there last August in the Kramer Klash with the All Stars.

Up Next

Reinhardt finally gets to hit the road this week.  The team will travel to Attica Raceway Park in Ohio to begin their Tezos All Star Circuit of Champions campaign.  The season launches there with shows on both Friday and Saturday, April 15th-16th.

“We struggled at Attica last year but I’m looking forward to kicking off our All Star season there.  I’d like to get a top-10 there.  We’re capable of it.  We just need to get a good lap down to start the night and we’ll be ok.  It’s a different type of track than we have been running so far this year, but a lot of the things we’ve improved will translate“, Reinhardt explained.

Following the 2-day All Star opener, Reinhardt will have the opportunity to return to his home state of NJ to compete in the special ‘Invasion of the Posse’ 410 sprint car show at Bridgeport Motorsports Park on Tuesday, April 19th.

Season Stats

5 races, 0 wins, 2 top 5’s, 3 top 10’s, 5 top 15’s