Kruger struggles in non-points race at SAS

[NickHolt]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 13, 2006

Contact: K-MAC Sports, 512.417.9414

 

Kruger struggles in non-points race at SAS

 

Thirteen-year-old Jake Kruger didn’t have the greatest start to the Lonestar Legacys race last Saturday (Sept. 9) at San Antonio Speedway (SAS).

 

“We had a bad night,” stated Kruger Motorsports Team owner Bill Kruger. “We got down pit road but Jake had no clutch. Thus, the team worked on the car and the only practice Jake got was (his) qualifying (run).”

 

Kruger was able to overcome an eighth-place qualifying spot and pull off a top-5 finish at SAS.

 

“We lined up for practice but there was a delay,” the elder Kruger explained. “When we finally got started for practice, Jake pushed the clutch and didn’t have it. I opened the cap and saw there was no fluid. I was able to find some fluid; we filled it up and he was pumping the pedal up. It blew the piston out of the clutch slave cylinder. So, we had no clutch at all.”

 

Bill Kruger continued, “We got the car up in the air and worked on it during practice. We got it to where we thought it would work and was going out for the second practice but the same thing happened. John Martin ran to the parts store and picked up a slave cylinder. We got the car ready just in time to qualify.”

 

Once he got on the track, the younger Kruger used the first five laps to “get the feel of the track.”

 

“I was letting the car come to me,” declared the younger Kruger. “I was on the outside of another car for sixth place after three laps; once I got outside of him I rode it. Trey Mitchell spun to bring out a caution.”

 

Jake added, “I worked on getting past a couple of lapped cars and when I finally did, I was still about 5-10 car lengths behind the top four cars. I started feeling comfortable with the car and started driving hard. My dad told me I was running pretty fast; it felt like I was one of the fastest cars in the last 10 laps of the race.”

 

The low car count (the Legacys started just 12 cars instead of an anticipated 16-18), the race was cut to 30 laps instead of the usual 50-lap race. “I feel I would have caught the leaders if we’d had 20 more laps,” Jake said. “Still, I’d like to thank the efforts of John Martin and my sponsors - Austin V-Dub, Capitel Communications, Kool Carts of Texas and Sikkens Paints.”

 

“We’re proud of Jake and we’re very thankful to John Martin for helping us out,” said Deb Kruger. “Considering the circumstance, we’re all proud of Jake.”

 

As for the last race of the Legacys season - Oct. 28 at Thunder Hill Raceway’s Texas Stock Car Spectacular - Bill stated, “We’re going to take the car apart and look extensively at the transmission we borrowed from Bob Riley. We have our team’s transmission repaired and it will be ready for the last race of the season. We have a little time before the race so we’ll take our time and go over all details of our car in preparation for that race.”

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