Egbert Opens Season and Shop for 2018 STLMS Lid Lifter

[rebelracewriter]

Egbert Opens Season and Shop for 2018 STLMS Lid Lifter

By JM Hallas

 

(May 7th, 2018) On any given weekend at Any Track, USA you can find other racers willing to step in and help their competitors with spare parts, set up tips or changing a flat in the hot pits. Defending Southern Texas Late Model Series champion, GW Egbert IV went above and beyond for one of his fellow drivers.

 

Egbert's points rival, Brandon Brzozowski who chased Egbert for the series titles in 2016/2017, found an engine issue before the first race. It had to be pulled and sent to the builder for examination which would have put Brzozowski on the sidelines for the opening event. Egbert didn't just offer another engine, no, Egbert went even further offering Brzozowski his back-up car to make the show.

 

The race itself was originally scheduled to be held at Cotton Bowl Speedway(Paige, Tx.) but unfortunately overnight rains and muddy conditions forced the track to cancel. After some phone calls from series director Kody Hardage, 281 Speedway(Stephenville, Tx.) picked up the show adding it to their program for the night.

 

In the heat race Brzozowski finished second to Egbert and re-drew the pole for the feature. An early spin by Brzozowski put him at the tail. Egbert would go on to win the event while Brzozowski battled his way back up to fourth.

 

Having been around racing for some 45+ years this is truly a show of sportsmanship to the N-th degree. Certainly very few people have the resources to lend an entire car, so it's quite a rarity to begin with. Egbert showed his true spirit of competition.

 

“This series is a fun series to race,” said Egbert. “I've been racing a long time and we all get along real good in the series. I'd much rather give someone my spare car to race, than to see them sitting at home.”

 

“We raced for the title until the end of the season last year. Actually at the end of last season he thought he wouldn't have his car back together, so we were going to lend the car then. I'd rather race until the end and earn it, than have it handed to me. That's probably the biggest reason I did it. I wouldn't feel good about winning the championship because someone had bad luck.”

 

“I've always had PJ and Phil(Egbert) to draw from. One year we went to the Supernationals and my car wasn't really competitive so they loaned me their back up car. JP(Dowell) has always helped out when needed and my dad has given me his car when I needed it. He's helped me out during some points deals. That's probably another reason why I did it. That's what I like about racing, That's what makes it fun.”

 

“It was awesome that GW did that,” added Brzozowski. “We've raced side by side the last two years. We battled it out for points and always tried to help each other on and off the track many times. He's a good dude.”

 

“That's something that's never happened for me before. I've only been piloting a Late Model for four years now. Just for him to trust me enough to drive his back up car, was a big deal to me. This was his primary car last year. I really appreciated it and I'd gladly do it for him if the situation was the other way around.”

 

“This is what's so cool about this series. We'll go out and run each other as hard as we can, door to door, but at the end of the day we'll still help each other out. We want the other guy to be out on the track and not have anything handed to us. We want to earn it.”

 

Both agreed if it had come down to last lap shootout for the win, that they'd have raced it out and given each other respect.

 

Kudos to GW for helping not only a fellow racer, but a points contender as well.