(St. Thomas, Ontario) – Sunday, May 22nd, the green flag will drop at Delaware Speedway on the 2005 CASCAR Super Series season, and D.J. Kennington will be among the combatants. For Kennington, he will again be searching for his first Super Series victory in the MOPAR 250 at his home track, a place where D.J. has had a tremendous amount of success, including a track championship in 1997.
As always, the MOPAR 250 is one that Kennington has circled on his calendar every year. “I don’t know where else I would rather be on Victoria Day weekend then Delaware. This is my home track, and one of my favorites. This race is always special because of the sponsor as well. MOPAR has been such a big supporter of CASCAR, and all the guys that race Dodge cars. It’s also the debut of the new Charger in CASCAR. They are great looking race cars and should really race well. It’s an exciting new product to be involved with.”
There have been a few changes with the D.J.K. Racing Team over the winter, and Kennington is very optimistic about the moves, explaining, “We’ve added a second car, and Marc Miller will be competing in six events with a car out of our shop. Marc doesn’t have a lot of CASCAR seat time, but I think you’ll see more of him closer to the front this year. We want to help Marc gain some experience and I know with his road course background, when we go to the Toronto Molson Indy, or, or Mosport, he’ll be in good shape to compete for a top-five.”
But the personal additions didn’t stop with Miller. “Both Jeremy Noon, and Jim Walsh have been working for another team, and have been helping us when they can over the past few years, but this year they are both on board full-time. It’s great to have them around the shop. They both have a tremendous amount of experience, and we’re confident that along with the personal we already had in place, we can take a run at the championship in 2005. We want to get off to a great start and put 2004 in the rearview mirror.”
The 2004 season was one that D.J. has been looking to put behind him since the final checkered flag fell last September. The year started with a seventh-pace finish at Delaware, but a few flat tires, and a pair of DNF’s at Cayuga and Peterborough put Kennington back to 15th in the championship standings after five races. Event number six was the Molson Indy in Toronto, and Kennington had his highlight of the season, starting second and finishing third. Another trip to the podium at the Mosport oval, and a couple of fourth-place results down the stretch allowed D.J. to scratch and claw his way back into the top-10 in the points race. “Last year was so frustrating for us. We broke a bunch of stuff early on, and that really put us in a hole. Then, every time it looked like we could see the edge of the hole and were ready to climb out, something would knock us back down again. We couldn’t get a caution when we had a flat, and we broke a clutch. Those are things that you just can’t do anything about. We had a top-five car at a lot of races last year, and weren’t able to close the deal. This year is going to be different. If we can get a couple of breaks, we’ll make some of our own luck, win a few races, and take a shot at the championship.”
That 12-leg championship run will start this weekend at Delaware Speedway, just outside of London. The CASCAR Super Series field will qualify at 3:00 on Saturday, with the green flag dropping on the MOPAR 250 at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon. Other action at Delaware this weekend features the AutoValue Super Sprints on Friday night, with support divisions taking to the track on both Friday and Saturday nights.
For more information on D.J.K. Racing, CASCAR, or Delaware Speedway, please visit www.geocities.com/17cascar, www.cascar.ca, or www.delawarespeedway.com.
Prepared by Maudsley Motorsports.
No comments:
Post a Comment