CAISTOR CENTRE, Ont. (August 22, 2018) – Team Turner Racing had all three cars in action for a doubleheader of racing with the Southern Ontario Sprints and had both Ryan and Cory Turner finish on the podium with second and third-place finishes, respectively, on Saturday night at South Buxton Raceway. The team was also in action at Ohsweken Speedway on Friday night for a combined SOS versus Kool Kidz-Corr/Pak Sprint Car event.
Ryan Turner
Ryan Turner started Friday night with a fifth-place finish in his heat race aboard the Kingpin Farms/Aitkin Motors No.91, which put him 15th on the starting grid for the A-Feature.
“We battled the same issue the whole night,” Ryan explained. “We had an MSD Box going bad on us. We thought the car wasn’t hooking up, but it was just the MSD Box, which is kind of a positive note. It’s unfortunate it happened on a double points night (for Corr/Pak and SOS).”
In the Feature, Ryan raced forward to 11th by lap 10 where he stayed until the final green-white-checkered restart in the 25-lap Feature. The MSD Box problem reached its peak then and ended his night.
“It started spitting with about 10 laps to go and then it totally quit on the restart,” Ryan said. “The car wasn’t bad. I just don’t think the engine was firing like it should have. We weren’t terrible, but it didn’t give us the power to go ahead.”
The end result was a 17th-place finish for Ryan. The Burger Barn Racing team then prepared the Ace 1 Construction sponsored ride for Saturday’s action at South Buxton where he powered to a heat race win.
“The team thrashed on the car all day and gave me a great ride for the heat race,” Ryan said. “It’s always good when you can drive around your brother in turn one. I just had some fun leading some laps and the car was a dream to drive.”
Ryan’s win put him outside the front row with his brother Cory on the pole for the 25-lap main event. He raced in second until he got past Cory late in the race to take the lead while battling among lapped traffic.
“I knew we just had to wait for lapped traffic and then maybe get a good jump on a restart,” Ryan said. “I just tried to save my tires and ride around for a bit. We got into lapped traffic and we had quite the battle for a while and Westbrook got involved with us. It was a blast racing and we were going hard.”
Continued Ryan: “We finally found the high line late in the race and had a good two lap battle to get by him. Late in the race we got caught up in some lapped traffic on the last corner. One car got a little squirrelly on the high side, so I went to the bottom. The lapped car followed me and Westbrook went around us on the last corner for the win.”
Ryan was pleased with another solid run in SOS action and his eighth top-five finish of the season. He now sits third in the standings with three races remaining. However, he certainly felt he had a car capable of another trip to Victory Lane.
“If we didn’t have the lapped traffic, I think we would have taken the win,” Ryan said. “The car had a ton of speed. I could pretty much put it anywhere and it was still going ahead. It was a little disappointing on the end, but it’s a racing thing and we were still pretty excited with what we found. We tried a little different setup and It really seemed to work.”
Cory Turner
Cory started Friday night off with a fourth-place effort in his heat, which earned him a spot in the redraw after starting eighth in his KT Gas and Variety/Silo Wireless No.97. He pulled the eighth starting spot for the Feature and raced around that spot before he eventually finished sixth.
“We just missed it a little bit,” Cory said of the setup. “In the Heat we were good and went eight to fourth to get in the redraw. In the Feature, the track has been different the last couple of weeks than it has the whole year and we just need to change our game plan a little bit going forward. We were as good as the guys in front of us, just not quite fast enough to pass them.”
On Saturday night, Cory ran second to Ryan in his heat before drawing the pole in the Feature. He grabbed an early lead and open a full straightaway advantage before slower traffic erased his advantaged and allowed both Ryan and Dylan Westbrook to enter the battle at the front.
“I ran down the lapped traffic within nine laps from the pole and then there were guys two wide in front of them and I couldn’t get by them,” Cory said. “That put Dylan and my brother right on my back bumper.
Added Cory: “I could hear my brother the next five laps after the caution. He got by me and then I had to lift. I almost got him back down the backstretch around a lapped car, then actually, we almost had a shot at the win on the last lap. My brother got pinched down by a lapped car and then I tried to get by them both, but Dylan drove around us all.”
Overall, Cory was happy with his effort and extended his point lead to 49 over Westbrook after starting the weekend with a 22-point gap over Ryan.
“The car was really fast and good, it just slicked off a little bit more than we thought and just got a little bit too free,” Cory said. “But, we extended our points lead and that’s the goal: to win the war.”
Jamie Turner
Jamie Turner raced to a fifth-place finish in his heat on Friday at Ohsweken before claiming an 12th-place finish in the Feature behind the wheel of his Charlie Bee Honey/Mudcat Entertainment Centre No.11.
“I was okay in the A-Feature on Friday,” Jamie said. “We were trying some new stuff this week because we’ve been struggling and I think we made some gains. We’ll have to wait until we go back this week, but we’re looking forward to it. It was a nice, wide and smooth racetrack. It made for really good racing in all the classes.”
On Saturday at South Buxton, Jamie was fifth in his heat and then ninth in the main event at the tricky south western Ontario track.
“It’s hard to pass there, but they had a good surface and it was smooth,” Jamie said. “It was good to make the trip to Buxton. Both of the boys ran up front, so it was good. We’re chasing the SOS point tour, so it was good to bring the car home after a good run.”
Up Next
Team Turner Racing will return to action on Friday, August 24 at Ohsweken Speedway with the Kool Kidz-Corr/Pak 360 Sprint Cars for Minor Sports night. It is also Team Turner Racing’s annual corn roast. Everybody in attendance is welcome to stop by the Turner pit area for a post-race snack, all in honour of Turner Racing patriarch, the late Don Turner.
“I’m looking forward to our corn roast this week,” Jamie said. “We do it honour of my dad, and it’s a lot of fun to have everybody eat with us after the races.”
Race time is 7:30pm. For additional event information, visit www.ohswekenspeedway.com.
SEASON STATS
11 Jamie Turner – 15 Starts: 0 Wins, 0 Top-5s, 5 Top-10s
91 Ryan Turner – 15 Starts: 1 Win, 8 Top-5s, 11 Top-10s
97 Cory Turner – 18 Starts: 2 Wins, 9 Top-5s, 13 Top-10s
TEAM TURNER MEDIA
Website: teamturnerracing.ca
Facebook: facebook.com/TeamTurnerRacing
Twitter: @11TeamTurner19
YouTube: Youtube.com/RacingTeamTurner
MAILING LIST
Join the Team Turner Racing mailing list by emailing claytonjohnsmedia@gmail.com with the subject “Turner” to be added to the list.
TEAM TURNER PARTNERS
Team Turner Racing is proud to partner with several dedicated marketing partners for the 2018 race season, including KT Tobacco, Charlie-Bee Honey, Mudcat Entertainment Centre, Braemar Building Systems, Pyett Spring & Alignment, DSE Performance, Gale’s Auto Aftermarket, Plazek Auto Recyclers, Malabar Super Spice, V&R Recycling, Country Event Services, JNE Recovery, Skyway Lawn Equipment, Total Coatings, KT Gas & Convenience, Six Nations Bingo, Silo Wireless, CJ Mulholland Mattress Factory, Truck Toppers, iC Super Computers, Silverdale Gun Club, Bryan’s Farm Supply, Beamer Farms, The Powerhouse, Hitchman Trailers, Barlow Farms, Mac Tools, V&R Hose & Hydraulics, RCM Racing Equipment, JLB Mobile Mechanical, Tetra-Chem Industries, Wix Filters, Mayhew Graphics, ImageFactor.ca, and Clayton Johns Media.
Discussion about this post