Lee Grosz Garners Runner-up Finish at Jackson Motorplex!
HARWOOD, N.D. (June 13, 2017) – The Lee Grosz Racing team headed south last weekend, making trips at two of the Midwest’s most historic dirt tracks. The weekend began Friday night at Jackson Motorplex, where Grosz had picked up three third place finishes the week before during the Jackson Nationals. Saturday night brought them to the Marion County Fairgrounds for a weekly show at Knoxville Raceway.
Friday night began with Lee picking up the heat race win. Grosz advanced from fourth to second in the early stages before sizing up the leader.
“The car that was leading was running the top so I starting running the bottom,” Grosz said. “It took me about two laps to pull even with him before I cleared him going into turn three. I think we won by about a straightaway and were turning some pretty good lap times.”
Grosz redrew the five pill, which placed him fifth on the starting grid for the main event.
The driver of the Beds by Design / J&J No. 4J quickly moved into the second spot and set his sights on Gregg Bakker for the lead. Once again Grosz ran the bottom, while the leader ran upstairs on the cushion.
“I could get alongside Bakker, but his momentum would carry him back in front of me at the end of the straightaway,” continued Grosz.
Lapped traffic briefly stalled Grosz’s charge, but Grosz was able to regain that lost ground.
“I got back to Bakker, but right when I was mounting another charge to try to get by him the yellow came out with two laps to go. He saw that I was running the bottom so that’s where he went on the restart, which forced me to go to the top. The top wasn’t as good so I lost ground. Bakker hit his marks after that and I had nothing for him.
“It was a fun race. We ran side by side for about eight laps and we were swapping lanes. It would have been interesting if that caution didn’t come out.”
Saturday at Knoxville marked the team’s first appearance of 2017 at the ‘Sprint Car Capital of the World.’
“It wasn’t the trip we were hoping for. We showed ok speed in hot laps so I had high hopes going into time trials, but we timed in 15th out of 25 which put us on the front row of the heat. I got the jump in the heat and I thought we might be ok, but we ended up running third.
“We changed a few things for the feature, but things just weren’t going our way. There was a red about halfway through. The track was pretty fast and not real wide. With the way things were going, I decided to pull into the pits and save the car for another week.”
This coming weekend the No. 4J team will be back in action with the MSTS and Nebraska 360’s Friday at Jackson Motorplex and Saturday at Off Road Speedway in Norfolk, Neb.
Saturday’s event will mark Grosz’s first appearance at the quarter-mile dirt oval.
SEASON STATS:
Races: 11
Wins: 1
Top Fives: 9
Top Tens: 10
Heat Race Wins: 3
