IRWINDALE, California -- Todd Burns, 2002 Late Model Champion, debuted his new Collins Motorsports G-Force Chevrolet Monte Carlo in front of a sellout crowd at Irwindale Speedway's season opener on Saturday night.
The Burns team spent the last three months building their new late model and the hard work definitely showed. Todd was fastest in the last practice of the day going into qualifying. As he took the track for his first qualifying run for the new car, he clicked off a lap of 19.124, with the second lap almost a mirror of the first. The invert placed him on the grid in the fourth row outside.
Burns took the green in the 75-lap Auto Club Late Model main and patiently waited to make a run to the front. One by one, he picked off competitors, diving to the bottom, three-wide, seat-of-your-pants racing. Burns swapped the lead a few times with the #10 of Deryk Ward and finally took it on lap 27 and continued to yard the field. At one point, Burns had a ½ straight lead. Near lap 55, the #45 of Scott Youngren was closing and Burns radioed to crew chief James Valk that it seemed he had an ignition problem. On lap 61, coming out of turn four, the #4 Villa Roma Chevrolet lost all power sending Burns to the infield.
"We had an awesome car tonight and we are very happy. Of course a little disappointed, but that's racing. We'll fix it and come back here on the 12th. A big thanks to all my guys who gave up so much these last three months to get this car here tonight. All the hard work and effort paid off and I couldn't have done it without their dedication. Thanks to Villa Roma Sausage, Gary Collins, Ron's Rear Ends, Maropulos Racing Engines, Dalcorp Racing, and all the sponsors who helped us to get here."
"I'm real happy with how the car performed tonight. Unfortunate circumstances, but we came here and did what we wanted to do. We'll come back here in two weeks and go for it again," stated Burns' crew chief James Valk.
Look for this race to air on Fox Sports Net West 2 on May 22nd at 6:00 pm. Burns Motorsports will return to Irwindale Speedway on April 12th.
