Grosz Claims First Win of 2018 at Rapids Speedway

ROCK RAPIDS, Ia. (May 9, 2018) – Lee Grosz and the HI-10 Sports Center / Kyle Johnson Trucking team returned to victory lane last Friday night at Rapids Speedway with the MSTS 360 Sprint Cars. Lee also recorded a podium finish on Saturday at Wagner Speedway.

“We had kind of been struggling and I haven’t really felt comfortable in the car so far this year. We took those things out that we were trying and went back to our old standard deal. I could tell right away Friday night during hot laps that the changes we made were going to be good,” said Lee.

That feeling and speed Lee had in hot laps carried over the rest of the night. Lee drove from sixth to win his heat race by nearly four seconds.

From there, Lee lined up in the fourth position for the 25-lap main event. “I didn’t get a great start for the feature. I was running fifth or sixth when the red came out four laps in,” Lee said. “During the red my crew guy, Austin, came over and gave me a few pointers on where to run on the track. Everybody was running the bottom so I searched around the top and eventually found something in the middle of turns three and four.

“Lapped traffic really helped me out because the leaders had to protect the bottom and couldn’t get around them. I could maneuver a little bit better, which played into my favor,” Lee explains.

Lee made the pass for the lead over Dusty Ballenger with nine laps to go.

“I just set sail from there,” he said.

Lee quickly opened up a four-second lead over the rest of the field and cruised to his sixth career MSTS win, which ties him for third on the all-time wins list with Gregg Bakker.

Just as he did on Friday, Lee picked up another heat race win to start the night.

Despite redrawing the fifth starting position for the feature, the crew didn’t change much on the car.

“I was tight early on, but I just paced myself because I knew the car would come to me,” he said.

By the halfway point, Lee picked off Bakker and Jack Dover to move into third.

“We ended up coming home third, but you can’t complain about that. We had a fast car all weekend and it’s nice knowing we have a car that can compete again. My dad and I have been putting in a lot of time in the shop during the week and all that work is starting to pay off now,” concluded Lee.

This weekend will be a rare off-weekend for the Lee Grosz Racing team, but they will be back in action Friday, May 18 with the MSTS 360s at Rapid Speedway.

2018 Stats:
Races: 6
Wins: 1
Top Fives: 2
Top Tens: 3
Heat Wins: 2

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