3/20/2021
David Marlow
Marlow takes on Bristol
March 14th - 20th 2021
When they announced that Bristol Motor Speedway would be covered in dirt and drivers across the country would have the opportunity to race there, David immediately called his brother and said, "If they race crates, we have to go" and that's what they did.
It felt like one of those once in a lifetime opportunities that you have to jump on if you have the chance. Just a year ago, I still wasn't sure i'd ever be able to race again and I know my racing days could be over anytime, so I had to do it.
We had a strong Start on Tuesday after starting on the back row of our heat race due to a high draw. I immediately got around a few guys but when I went to go to the middle of the track to try and pass a couple cars running the bottom in front of me, I got a bit too high and hit the heavy stuff they had groomed between races. It felt like hitting a wall and really slowed my momentum and broke me loose coming out of the corner. I knocked the spoiler off the car and was extremely loose from that point on. We ended up 7th.
We rolled off 20th in our feature Tuesday night and knew we needed to make up some points. Marlow managed to miss a few wrecks in front of him early, but ended up having to pull off early due to a fuel issue that we believed to be caused by a clogged filter and finished 16th. While it's not the finish we had hoped for, it was a blast.
We were then set to start on the outside front row of our heat on Thursday and had high hopes for what we might be able to do, but rain came through and canceled the racing for the day. With no make up scheduled, this left us starting 9th in the last chance qualifier on Saturday.
We knew we had to finish in the top 3, and while it was a long shot, we went out knowing what needed to be done and determined to get there. Unfortunately a few back to back cautions came out and we ended up with a flat RF tire, ending our weekend.
Bristol was an absolute blast to race, and we would love to go back. There is a lot of room for improvement of how the show is run, and we have confidence that everyone learned from the experience and will implement the improvements needed to run a more efficient show. We feel like we had a car that could have been in contention had Thursdays show not been rained our or we had a bit of a better draw for the tuesday show. But in the end, we had a little bad luck and some parts failures that gave us some challenges. The overall experience was truly amazing and I'm blessed to have had the opportunity to race at a legendary track.
Submitted By: David Marlow