BRASELTON, Ga. — Kyle Busch and David Ragan are just two of the racers headed to Georgia’s Lanier National Speedway Saturday and Sunday as part of SpeedFest 2010, which features a 250-lap CRA-sanctioned super-late-model event.
Busch is the defending winner of the super late model portion of SpeedFest and hopes to add another victory his resume. Busch will also join Ragan in the 150-lap pro late model portion of SpeedFest.
“I’m looking forward to it and getting back into the NOS Energy Drink Camry down there at SpeedFest,” said Busch. “It’s been a year since we’ve been there and we’ve got a new crew chief on board this year with Chris Gabehart. Bond Suss (former crew chief) has moved to the (Kyle Busch Motorsports) general manager role and he’s got some good stuff that we’re looking forward to. Hopefully with both cars, the pro car and the super car, we’ll have some good stuff down there to try to contend for both wins this time.”
Ragan has had the pro late model portion of SpeedFest on his radar at Lanier for some time. Ragan, a Georgia native, considers Lanier’s three-eighths-mile asphalt oval to be one of his home tracks.
“Hopefully it will be fun, that’s why we’re going to run the pro late model class again,” said Ragan. “That’s what we ran a few weeks ago at the Shriner’s Bowl. We just built this car brand new and this is only our second race, so we still need to run a few more races to kind of get our feet wet. We’re still learning about some of the short tracks and late model racing.
“It’s been a few a years since I’ve run any late model cars throughout the southeast, so we need to learn to walk before we run,” Ragan added. “It will still be a fun race, a competitive race, and it will also give us a chance to learn a little bit more and hopefully later on throughout the season we’ll go and run some super (late model) races with some of these guys.”
Busch’s victory in the 250-lap race last January set the stage for a huge year, not only in NASCAR’s top-three series, where he won 20 races total, but also in his short track endeavors as well. In 2009, Busch won a number of prestigious late model races such as the Winchester 400 and the Snowball Derby, but his big year got kick-started at Lanier at SpeedFest.
“You’re always proud of any victory you get and to start off the year with a big victory at SpeedFest felt really, really good,” Busch said. “Then with the way our season went, we had some ups and downs, but we won a lot of the big races. We would have liked to have won a couple more, but starting the year off with SpeedFest is the right thing to do.
“Going down there in January just kind of gets some racing back into you and gets the team guys back to racing again, you know, being out on the road and staying in hotels and just being able to get back to the atmosphere. The following week I’m down in Daytona, so being able to get back in a racecar and remember how to put on a helmet, ear plugs, and Hans device on is all good for me.”
Busch and Ragan will be joined by fellow NASCAR drivers David Stremme and Steven Wallace on the track during the SpeedFest weekend, while former NASCAR Cup Series champions Rusty Wallace and Bill Elliott will also be on hand for the festivities at Lanier.
The NASCAR talent on the track will have their hands full with some of the top short track talents in the country competing at SpeedFest 2010, including Bubba Pollard, Jason Hogan, Bobby Gill, Scott Hantz, Johnny VanDoorn and more in the 250-lap super late model race, as well as Paul Kelley, Shane Sawyer and defending pro late model SpeedFest winner Greg Simpson in that 150-lap tilt.