ROSEVILLE, California — Jim Pettit II, the current SRL Southwest Touring Series champion, overcame a lap 80 incident that dropped him near the back of the field, but drove his Golden Gate Petroleum Ford back up to a third place finish in the 125 lap “Riebes Auto Parts 125” at All American Speedway Saturday night.
" It started out to be a good night that turned into a bad night, which turned out to be a good night,"— Jim Pettit II
After qualifying and starting a disappointing eleventh, “We struggled all weekend with tires. We were in the top five in practices, but we’d put new tires on and we’d be 4/10ths off. We drew an early qualifying spot; the luck of the draw; and the track was cold and the tires weren’t much better after we’d work on it all day, and basically that’s why we ended up eleventh”.
In the race, by lap eight he was in eighth; lap forty-one in fourth; and on lap 50 moved into second behind his long-time friend and rival, M K Kanke, of Fraizer Park, CA. During the next several laps, Pettit tried every which way but loose to pass Kanke, but to no avail. On lap 80 Pettit and another competitor came together, and Pettit found himself deep in the field with several lapped cars between himself and the front-runners. “M K and I came up on a lapped car and I slowed a bit to give him some room, and a car came up underneath me and we made contact, causing me to spin, and then I got tagged by another car who had nowhere to go”.
However, by lap 114 he was back up to fifth; on lap 116 up to fourth; and on the last lap, with brake rotors glowing cherry red, moved into third.
“To summarize, we struggled all weekend, but my crew, as always, never gave up. It started out to be a good night that turned into a bad night, which turned out to be a good night, although we didn’t win like we hoped to. I was happy to see M K win as he’s been off for a year. So we’ll take it one race at a time and go from here”.
The next race on the SRL schedule is May 3rd at “The Bullring” at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
