SEVIERVILLE, TN — With the Kevin Whitaker Chevrolet 140 at Greenville-Pickens (S.C.) Speedway originally scheduled to be run on Labor Day, Tropical Storm Irene decided instead to rain on the parade of the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East competitors as it moved across the Southeast and up the East Coast, thus forcing the event to be postponed until Saturday, Sept. 10.
Beautiful sunny skies greeted the race teams upon their return to the Palmetto State on Saturday, and Dylan Presnell of Sevierville, a 16-year-old Sevier County High School honors student, was looking forward to his first time ever racing at the historic half-mile Greenville-Pickens Speedway.
Following practice during the daytime which saw Presnell sixth quickest at 21.389, he improved on that by recording a 21.124-second run in qualifying. However, that was only good for a 10th-place starting spot after Corey LaJoie (son of former NASCAR Nationwide Series champion Randy LaJoie) earned the pole position with a run of 20.903 seconds.
“My crew chief (Coleman Pressley) and I talked before qualifying about how important it was to get the car inside the top 10 for the start of the race,” said Presnell from his home in Sevierville on Tuesday night. “The caliber of competition in the K&N Pro Series East is very tough, and if you happen to make just the slightest mistake on your qualifying run it will mean you’re starting mid-pack or even further back in the field. When you qualify, you’ve just got to ‘get up on the wheel’ and drive the car to its very limits – but try to not overdrive the car. It’s just a very fine line.
“If you happen to mess the qualifying run up by trying to get just that little bit extra out of the car that just means you’re going to have drive the car hard in the race trying to work your way to the front. You’ll abuse the brakes and put excessive wear on your tires. To show just how competitive the Pro Series East fields are, from first-to-last on the 28-car starting grid at Greenville-Pickens was separated by half a second.”
Prior to start of the race, Presnell was presented the Coca-Cola Move of the Race Award and the $1,500 check for his performance at the series’ previous event at Columbus (Ohio) Motor Speedway.
LaJoie grabbed the early lead and rode out front for the first 57 laps. Sergio Peña moved into the lead on lap 58 and never looked back en route to capturing his third NASCAR K&N Pro Series East victory on the season. Peña was chased to the checkers by Brett Moffitt, Chase Elliott (son of 1998 NASCAR Winston Cup Series champion Bill Elliott), Alex Bowman and Max Gresham.
After starting the race from the tenth spot, Presnell drove to a strong seventh-place finish, with the top 10 cars finishing on the lead lap.
“We had a really good X Team Racing No. 14 Toyota Camry during the race,” Presnell said reflecting on his finish. “After three caution periods during the first 43 laps of the race, from that point on the race went all-green. Under green flag racing conditions the rest of the way the field got separated on the big, flat half-mile layout. Even though we were able to get a good seventh-place finish, as a racer you always want to run a little better.
“We were catching the car running right ahead of us in sixth there towards the end, but we just didn’t have enough laps left to try get around him. We’ll take the good run we had and look ahead to our next race in a couple of weeks when we make our second stop of the season at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. With my seventh-place run and my teammates Alex Bowman finishing fourth and Matt DiBenedetto coming home tenth, all in all the event at Greenville-Pickens was a good day for X Team Racing.”
In four starts in 2011 with the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, Presnell has recorded one seventh-place finish, two eighth-place runs and one 11th-place finish.
The Kevin Whitaker Chevrolet 140 from Greenville-Pickens Speedway will air on SPEED on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 7 p.m. ET.
The NASCAR K&N Pro Series East will make its second visit this season to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, N.H., on Friday, Sept. 23 for the New Hampshire 125 at the 1.058-mile track. The Pro Series East event will be part of a weekend featuring the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Camping World Truck Series and Whelen Modified Tour.
Backing Presnell’s efforts in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East in 2011 are AmericanMountainRentals.com (Smoky Mountain Cabins - Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tenn.), SmokyMountainCheeseLLC.com, Goulds Pumps, and Clearwater Drilling Co. of Sevierville, Tenn.
To contact Ken Presnell at Presnell Motorsports, located at 1868 Newport Highway in Sevierville, Tenn., call (865) 654-9586. To keep up with Dylan Presnell’s racing visit his Web site at www.DylanPresnell.com.
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