From Litt Racing PR // By Tommy GoudgeRyan Litt took home his first feature win in a full size sprint car on Friday night, and his timing for it couldn’t have been better. At Delaware Speedway, just 30 miles from his home in Lyons, Ontario, the 19 year old took over the lead on lap 10 of the 30 lap feature, after AJ Lane and Bill Tyler made contact racing for the lead, and held the lead the rest of the way to score a popular win with the hometown fans.
As the evening progressed, Ryan was running competitively, but probably wouldn’t have been picked as the winner either. Ryan qualified the #07 BS&B Radiator, OTC/SPX Tools Beast/Claxton Sprinter 6th out of 23 cars in time trials, and finished 5th in his heat race. In the feature, after the customary Auto Value/Bumper to Bumper Super Sprints series inversion of the top qualifiers, Ryan was able to start in 3rd place and rode there until the top 2 cars tangled on the 10th circuit.
Ryan survived a few more cautions and a late race charge through lapped traffic by fellow Owens Petroleum Rookie of the Year contender Chad Goff to bring the #07 to victory lane for the first time.”I’m so happy to win at Delaware,” said Ryan of his first win. “There was a good crowd and they were really loud and happy with the outcome – it was really neat.”
There wasn’t much time to celebrate the victory however as the AVSS series moved 2 hours to the West on Saturday night to the Auto City Speedway in Flint, Michigan. The #07 was 12th fastest in time trials out of the 26 cars in attendance, and finished 4th in the heat race. 12th quickest in time trials meant Ryan could not be involved in the invert for the feature on this night and started 12th in the 21 car feature field.
A relatively uneventful race saw the #07 quietly move forward into the 7th spot by the time the checkered flag flew 30 laps later.”We figure our wide axel isn’t good for short tracks (like Auto City),” said Ryan afterwards, “So next time we race there and at other tight tracks we’re going to run a narrower axel. We just can’t make the car as good as it needs to be (to run up front) on the short tracks. It’s great on the big tracks though – I can’t wait for Toledo and Fort Wayne this weekend.”
Next up for Ryan and the rest of the travelling stars of the AVSS is another busy doubleheader weekend, this time at the Toledo Speedway in Ohio on Friday night, and the Baer Field Speedway in Fort Wayne, Indiana on Saturday night. Ryan was 5th fastest in time trials and 6th in the feature at Toledo last season in just his 2nd start in a winged sprint car. Baer Field, on the other hand, was the site of “the big wreck” which destroyed the #07 last season, necessitating a complete rebuild before another race could be run.
Ryan and the team are confident that they can improve on their results from last year at both venues.
