CAISTOR CENTRE, Ont. (July 24, 2018) – Cory Turner had an exciting tripleheader of 360 Sprint Car racing planned with the Patriot Sprint Tour (PST) last weekend, but Mother Nature took two of the three races as rain washed out Friday and Sunday Feature events to create a single day race weekend.
Turner started the weekend in his KT Tobacco/Silo Wirless No.97 Sprint Car with the PST at his home track Ohsweken Speedway. A big 37-car field was in attendance. Turner raced to a win in his qualifying heat and earned a spot in the redraw. He pulled the ninth starting spot for the Feature before rain came and forced the race to be postponed.
“The car was really good in the Heat Race,” Turner said. “We got out front into clean air and just tried to make good laps, make good time. We just wanted to get the win to get into the redraw.”
Based on how the track appeared to be slicking off smoothly from top to bottom, Turner felt he would have had a strong car for the $3,333-to-win main event.
“I think we could have run top-five, especially with it being 25 laps and starting to slick off,” Turner added. “I was looking forward to it.”
The race was postponed to Friday, September 14 and will now be a part of the Night Before the Canadian Sprint Car Nationals.
“We did this two years ago with the Empire Super Sprints show on the Friday of the Nationals,” Turner recalled. “It’s a big money show, so I’d hopefully like to win.”
With an early night Friday, Turner and his team were able to prepare for a trip to Brockville Ontario Speedway on Saturday for the second leg of the PST’s Canadian Triple Treat weekend. Turner lined up third in his heat race with 31 cars in attendance.
“It was really tough to pass in the heat races,” Turner said. “I started third and was running third. I got up behind Matt Billings and tried to pull out and go around him and the Cobra (Chuck Hebing) stuck it in on me. I almost got him back and I was going to chop him to go back to the bottom, but I just didn’t have enough on him to do it. He got by me, so I was third to fourth. Had we gone third to second like I planned, we would have been in the redraw.”
Finishing a single position further back meant Turner missed qualifying for the redraw and the dash and had to start 17th for the 25-lap Feature event.
“The track fooled me a little bit,” Turner admitted. “The year before, everybody thought it was going to rubber up and it didn’t. We were pretty good in that race and ran fourth. I figured it wouldn’t rubber up this year, but it did. We were good early before the rubber and we passed probably four or five cars because we had my car tighter than them, but once the rubber came in, I was terrible. It was just pushing like a Mack truck.”
Turner came to the pits under caution and tried to make handling adjustments during his two minutes in the work area. The team made some tweaks, but it wasn’t enough to make a significant difference.
“We came in and tried to make some adjustments, but we couldn’t make enough adjustments in the two minutes to make me free enough, so I parked it,” Turner explained. “It wasn’t worth potentially wrecking our equipment to finish 15th.”
Turner was ultimately scored in 24th, only his fourth race this season where he has finished outside the top-10.
“It was a good field of cars and a good night of racing,” Turner said. “We just missed the setup in the Feature.”
Sunday’s race was scheduled for Cornwall Motor Speedway, but was rained out early in the day and allowed the team to travel home in daylight. Turner will now turn his attention to a doubleheader weekend on July 27-28. The team will compete with the Kool Kidz-Corr/Pak 360 Sprint Cars at Ohsweken on Friday, July 27 before heading east to Brighton Speedway for round three of the Southern Ontario Sprints schedule on Saturday, July 28. For more information on Cory Turner Motorsports, visit www.coryturnermotorsports.com.
CORY TURNER SEASON STATS
97 Cory Turner – 13 Starts: 2 Wins, 7 Top-5s, 9 Top-10s
CORY TURNER MEDIA
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CORY’S CREW
Cory Turner is proud to partner with several dedicated marketing partners for the 2018 race season, including KT Tobacco, Insta-Panels, Braemar Building Systems, Silo Wireless, Mobil 1, Kings Wood Products, Gale’s Auto Aftermarket, Skyway Lawn Equipment, Pyett Spring & Alignment, DSE Performance, Six Nations Bingo, Malabar Super Spice, JNE Recovery, V&R Recycling, Plazek Auto Recyclers, Hauser’s Pharmacy, KT Gas & Convenience, The Truck Toppers, CJ Mulholland Mattress Factory, Rondex, Silverdale Gun Club, Barlow Farms, Mike Morris Holdings, Bryan’s Farm Supply, Total Coatings, Hitchman Trailers, V&R Hose & Hydraulics, RCM Racing Equipment, Top Flight Wings, Tetra-Chem Industries, Wix Filters, Creative Edge Signs & Graphics, Northern Performance, Charlie Bee Honey, and ImageFactor.ca.
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