4th ARTS Win This Season For Jon T Garrett

[KELLY83]

4th ARTS Win This Season For Jon T. Garrett

by Kelly Freeman

July 30, 2003

 

Jon T. Garrett took his 3rd win in a row and his 4th of the season last Saturday night in the Allstar Race Truck Series (ARTS). Garrett took this win at Thunder Hill Raceway in Kyle, just south of Austin, TX.

 

Time trials would have the #99 truck of G.W. Griffin as the fastest qualifier around the 3/8 mile "D"-shaped speedway with a time of 16.554 seconds. He would be followed by #52 Steve Green at 16.699, and then the #66 Jon T. Garrett & #30 Bryan Meredith both with a time of 16.709 seconds around the semibanked asphalt speedway.

 

In the 1st heat Garrett would start on the outside of Griffin and fall in line behind him on the start. Soon Garrett saw an opportunity to make a pass and did so to win heat 1. Griffin would hold second as Jon Denham in the #26 truck took 3rd. The second heat saw #52 Steve Green take the win with #77 Todd McLemore in 2nd and the #30 of Meredith 3rd.

 

The feature lineup had the #52 of Green on the pole with the #66 of Garrett sitting outside. The second row hosted the #99 of Griffin in 3rd and the #77 McLemore in 4th. A couple laps into the race Garrett came alongside of Green as the 2 rubbed doors. Everyone straightened back out and Garrett led the lap across the line by a fender and then there was contact to the back of Green's #52 sending him spinning. A yellow was thrown and the #66 was sent to the rear of the field. Green would go back to the front as the leader and he would be followed by Griffin for the restart.

 

The Rose City Racing #66 of Jon Garrett would then start working his way through the field. He passed some trucks working them on the low side and to the amaze of many spectators and competitors alike, on the high side, which is almost unheard of at this speedway. Near the halfway point of the 60 lap race Garrett had found his way to the bumper of the current leader #30 Bryan Meredith. Jon followed a few laps and then made his move to the outside to make the pass and take the lead. Garrett wouldn't lose the position and led the remaining laps to take his 3rd race win in a row and his 4th of the season in the Lone Star Region of ARTS.

 

This being the 4th win by Garrett this season, the Chevrolet engine from the #66 truck would be confiscated by the tech official and completely inspected. The motor passed all inspections and was declared legal. This would make all finishing positions official. Second place went to the #30 of Bryan Meredith. Third was the #10 of Robert Walton, 4th went to the #50 of Rick Emde, and 5th to the #52 Steve Green.

 

Current point standing heading into an off week has Robert Walton holding onto 1st with 1662 points. 2nd now belongs to Jon T. Garrett as he climbs to 1619. 3rd is Jon Denham at 1573, 4th Bryan Meredith with 1389, and in the 5th position is Steve Green with 1377 points.

 

Teams will take this off week to prepare for the August 9th event at Houston Motor Speedway. The last time these guys were in Houston, Texas, was November 16th to close out the 2002 season. Jon Garrett took that win at Houston in the closing laps of the 50 lap race, climbing from the 9th position to 1st. He'll try to do it again August 9th but a tough field of competitors from the ARTS Lone Star Region will have plans of their own.