Colo. Spgs., CO.. Burney Lamar says he's looking forward to racing at Irwindale Speedway this weekend, for two reasons.
First, during the past 70 days the NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Series has only had one race. That being at Cajon Speedway (CA) 22 days ago. So, despite getting in some testing time at Pikes Peak Int'l Raceway yesterday, Burney only has 125 laps of competition since last February at Phoenix. He's a race car driver. And he's anxious.
Secondly, Burney says, " I'm definitely looking forward to Irwindale. We've run there in the past with my old car and now that we've got some excellent equipment under us, I'm looking forward to doing good". Refering to his old car, Burney competed in four Southwest Series races last year, one of them being at Irwindale. He also competed at Irwindale last year in the USAC Western States Sprint Car Series in which he finished third in the final point standings, and was named 'rookie of the year'.
Lamar is now concentrating his racing efforts in the Southwest Series, driving for Colorado Springs, CO. owners Mike and Sharon Bonicelli, and will be in the # 87 WaveShield, AMSOIL, Shilo Inn's Pontiac Gran Prix Saturday night for the "Food 4 Less 150".
So far this year, the racing gods haven't been too kind to Lamar, he having been spun out in each of the years first two events. However, despite these two, according to Burney, "unfortunate occasions", he and the race team have shown that they are capable of racing with the best. At Phoenix International Raceway he was running 5th when someone turned him around on lap 30 dropping him back to 24th, but he came back to finish 17th. At Cajon, he again was running 5th when he was run into from behind dropping him to the back of the field, but he finished a strong 7th. At both events he qualified in the top five.
Going into this weekends event, Lamar is 9th in the SWS point
standings, and 2nd in the 'rookie of the year' standings.
