KITCHENER, ON- After a top-5 finish in Sauble Speedway’s first night of competition on May 16th, Late Model veteran Tim Ellis is ready to make a run towards the 2015 weekly championship in his first fulltime season in almost a decade.
Ellis, with the assistance of setup guru Brian MacDonald, will pilot a brand new Hamke by MacDonald chassis in a division brimming with some of Ontario’s best.
“I have a world of respect for this Sauble Late Model division,” says Ellis. “These guys are incredibly tough. The game has changed a lot since the last time I did this on a fulltime basis, so we’re still working to get on pace with the rest of these teams”
In his first start of 2015 on May 16th, Ellis showed speed in his two rounds of heat race qualifying, but was the victim of a first lap incident that heavily impacted the handling of his familiar No. 2.
“Being spun on the first lap isn’t the way I had envisioned starting my comeback season,” laughs Ellis. “It was, by all accounts, just a racing deal. Unfortunately, we spun in front of the entire field and ended up taking some pretty heavy damage”
“We were able to bring it in [to the pit area] and put the front end back together as much as possible, but it definitely took a lot out of us,” continues the Kitchener, ON veteran.
Despite the damage, Ellis clawed his way through the field to a 5th place finish, and is still able to look back on May 16th as a positive experience.
“May 16th taught us a lot about this car,” explains the championship hopeful. “As far as I’m concerned, that track time is going to prove invaluable. We had a few question marks entering that weekend, in terms of what was going to work and what wasn’t, and we were able to answer quite a few of them”
“All things considered a top-5 in our debut as a huge success. We took a lot of damage on the first lap – so clawing our way back through the field was an accomplishment”
Adding with a laugh, “If our car can work that well with the front end hanging off of it, I can’t wait to see what it can do when it’s fixed up and in proper race trim”
With his Fibernetics No. 2 repaired and ready for action, Ellis will now have to wait until Sauble returns to action on June 13th.
“We’ve worked all winter for this,” beams Ellis. “We didn’t have the results we were hoping for on opening night. We’ll be entering Week 2 in search of some redemption. Hopefully we can qualify well, keep ourselves in the mix all night, and be in contention for the lead when the laps start to count.”
Tim Ellis’ 2015 Sauble Speedway season is made possible thanks to the support of Fibernetics, Academy Construction and Boehmers.
Fans can stay up to date with Tim all summer long by visiting the official Tim Ellis Racing page on Facebook.
By Spencer Lewis (@itsspencerlewis)
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