(Bill W) February 23, 2015 – Brad Loyet and the Loyet Motorsports/Vacuworx #o5 team started their season out with three top fives last weekend in Florida. After finishing fourth and third in preliminaries, the Sunset Hills, Missouri driver finished the Ronald Laney Memorial finale at East Bay Raceway Park near Tampa in fourth place. This weekend, the team heads for a two-night event at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala on Friday and Saturday.
With passing points in the offing, drawing the front row of a heat with nearly a 70-car field isn’t the worst place to be, but it wasn’t the best place to be on Thursday either. “When we drew the pole of the heat with 67 cars, we knew it wouldn’t be good as far as our starting spot in the A, even if we won,” says Brad. “The winner moves on, but you’re not going to start better than 12th or 14th. The good part was, they gave us points for the weekend for winning our heat. We got the most points there by winning, so that was good.”
Starting the preliminary feature fourteenth, Brad had a rough start. “We were able to get a really good jump on the initial start,” he says. “Unfortunately, it was called back and I had really shown my cards to the guys in front of me. The next start, I had a roadblock in front of me and I fell several spots back.”
The team had the car setup well, however, and Brad would surge back through the field. “We were able to get back up through there,” he says. “We were really rolling well. I think the last five laps of the race, I had the fastest car. I was running them down in a hurry and found a line that was really working. We ran fourth from there, so we were still sitting in a good spot for the weekend.”
As far as passing points go, Friday started out well, with a draw outside of row three for the heat. “I was planning on following Tony Bruce Jr. through there,” says Brad. “We looked at the lap times, and the driver on the front row was about a second slower than us. Tony told me we needed to get around him. Well, he did really well, but it was like a parking lot for me for a while! I fell back to eighth right away. It lit a fire underneath me and we were able to get back up to second.”
The charge put Brad in the redraw. He would start inside row two for the main event. “By feature time, the track was just lockdown rubber,” he says. “The B’s had already been one-lane and tough to pass. It was pretty much ride around the whole race. We had to take what we were given in that situation and that was third. It was enough to lock us into Saturday night’s A main, so it made that pressure a lot easier.”
While 60+ competitors battled it out to make Saturday’s finale, the team would simply draw for their starting spot. They would go from outside row two. “We had a good redraw, and we got a good jump,” says Brad. “Mark Smith slid us on the first lap and we were able to get back underneath him. We were racing hard the first few laps. He was good all weekend, and definitely the guy to beat.”
Brad saw an opportunity when the caution flag came out. “I thought I had a chance (to get by Smith) on a restart,” he says. “I dove underneath him, and his car was operating so well. While I was trying that, Aaron Reutzel got around me. Mark was in a league of his own while second, third and fourth were battling it out. We got into lapped traffic and I tried to get around Reutzel. Johnny (Herrera) got around me, and that’s when I got up on the wall and decided that unless I was sure I was going to make a pass, I was going to stay up there.”
He would come home fourth, and the team was happy with their trip to East Bay. “We came out of the gate swinging with three top fives and it was a great way to start the season,” says Brad. “For me, it sets the tone for the year a little bit. It gives us a lot of confidence heading into Ocala and the rest of the year.”
Brad’s Website
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Brad and the Loyet Motorsports team would like to thank primary sponsors: Vacuworx Global and Loyet Landscape Maintenance. Associate sponsors: Maxim Race Cars, J and D Performance Racing Engines, Butlerbuilt Professional Seat Systems, Meramec Heights Collision Center, KSE Racing, Weld Wheels, Penske Shocks, Wilwood Disc Brakes, Hepfner Racing Products, DMI, Saldana Racing Products, Rod End Supply, Bell Helmets, TI 64, Conroy Control, The Engine Heater, Ealey Transportation, and Speedway Motors.
Attached: Brad races at East Bay (Hoseheads.com Photo)
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