Green River’s Zac Taylor took second in his ASCS Frontier Region debut at Gillette Thunder Speedway June 1.
“For our first sprint car race of the season with a new engine, I couldn’t be more excited,” Taylor said. “It was a phenomenal weekend.”
Tayor competed in a sprint car with a five-year-old 360ci engine, an upgrade to the 305ci he competed with last year, and has only had three races with it since it was refreshed.
“In the heat I started on the pole and led the whole thing,” he said. “We had an extra quart of oil in the dry sump and it smoked pretty bad in the turns. I kept an eye on the oil pressure and it was great the entire race.”
His heat performance let Taylor advance into the feature redraw, starting on the outside front row of the A Main race. He ran there during the early portion of the race before falling back a few positions.
“I fell back to fourth and the car just came in and I got back to second, but the leader was already three quarters of a lap ahead of us,” he said. “I’ll settle for second. I’m happy the car worked well and the motor ran great.”
Taylor also scored a pair of top-five finishes last week.
“I’m ecstatic with how this season has started,” he said. “I felt like coming into this season and our first year with a 360 we would struggle a little as we learned; that we’d get a lot of top-15 finishes. But to accomplish what we have in the last two weeks is truly phenomenal. I can’t thank my parents and all my sponsors enough for all they’ve done for me.”
Taylor ranks eighth in the ASCS Frontier Region championship standings despite missing one of the events.
“To think only one driver, Kelly Miller, has finished ahead of us in all of the ASCS races we’ve competed in is a huge confidence builder,” he said.
On Friday, Taylor drove from his 10th starting position to a fifth-place finish at Gallatin Speedway in Belgrade, Mont. He followed that up by charging from sixth to a third-place result on Saturday at Big Sky Speedway.
“Saturday in our heat the car was perfect,” he said. “After (the race) a bunch of people came down to our pit and were looking over our car. I told dad to get the wheels off it so they couldn’t see our setup.
“Last year we raced against the 360s with our 305 at Calhan and I watched Logan Forler run through the middle of the turns, not in the rubber or on the bottom, but in the middle, and come off the corner and pass cars,” he said. “We tried to figure out how to get our car to do that and this weekend we accomplished that. I could run off the middle of the corner and pass cars. Our car was very maneuverable. I could go anywhere on the track.
“I knew we had a good car and good equipment coming into the year. The only question was the engine. We purchased a used engine and we really weren’t sure what we had. But after the first two weeks I can say we got a really good motor.”
Taylor will get back behind the wheel of Todd Henry’s midget for a pair of Lucas Oil POWRi Rocky Mountain Midget Racing Association events this Friday at Thomas County Speedway in Colby, Kan., and Saturday at I-76 Speedway in Fort Morgan, Colo.
“I’m looking forward to getting back out in the midget,” he said. “We’ve had speed every time out this year. Then on Sunday we’re going to go test the asphalt modified. That should be fun and I’m looking forward to learning how to be smooth and take care of tires.”
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