ELMA ENDEAVOR

ELMA, WA – Lane Zerbin finished 12th in the Modified Feature at Grays Harbor Raceway Saturday night.  “We finished a main event so that’s a positive,” exclaims the driver of the Northern Provincial Pipelines Ltd./C-Force Marine #81 Modified, “the car was good and handled great but we just have no luck.”  Earlier in the night Zerbin finished 6th in his opening Heat race.  “The way the pill draw worked out, most of the contenders ran in one Heat.  There were two or three cars from this Heat that were knocked into the B.”  Like he did at Cottage Grove, Oregon the beginning of the month, Zerbin drove to a ‘B’ Feature win in Elma, Washington leaving him undefeated in ‘B’ Feature appearances for the month of July.  “It’s kind of one stat that you don’t really want.  You want to skip over that race.  It is a positive but is also shows the car has speed and really doesn’t belong there.”  The top 5 cars from Saturday nights ‘B’ Main at Grays Harbor Raceway transferred to the big Feature.  The start of the 25 lap Feature saw two quick yellows.  “It was kinda like a one groove track. Some of the drivers were having problems.  Everyone was running into each other.”  Zerbin ended up being one of those drivers.  The second yellow flag, which involved Zerbin, turned into a red flag on lap 4.  “Car in front of me checked up,” admits the Victoria, BC driver, “unfortunately I got into him and hooked my right front over top of his left rear.  They (track crews) had to pull us apart.  Luckily nothing was too torn up so we could continue.”  Back to green and Zerbin focused on moving forward in the Feature.   By the halfway point Zerbin was running 12th.  With 8 laps to go Zerbin found himself in 11th with an opportunity to crack into the top 10. “I thought before we got into the incident (lap 4) we had a top 10 car.  It’s so hard when you are in the back of the pack with cars running side by side.  A lot of momentum is lost trying to get by them.”  With just three laps to go Zerbin finally cracked into the top 10.  On the white flag lap he slipped back to 12th.  “Let’s just call it trying too hard.  You get by a guy, then you try to make up ground on the next guy in front of you.  It’s trying to get more spots that you know you probably wouldn’t get.”  NASCAR legend Kenny Schrader won the Saturday night Feature.  Zerbin hoped to go wheel to wheel with Schrader in the Feature.  “I could see him going into turn one when I was coming out of turn four but that was about it.  It was good to see him come up here and put a show on for fans and local racers.”  Next race on the schedule is the two-day Shipwreck Beads Modified Nationals on Friday and Saturday night July 26th and 27th.

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