Sometimes, the bad moments in sports define a team as much or more than the glorious moments do.
That was the case for KLAS Motorsports and driver Andy Jankwoaik on Saturday night during the ARCA Menards Series event at Toledo Speedway (OH). The team recently won their first race in the series at Talladega Superspeedway (AL). Because of that success, they were able to find the resources to expand their schedule. The Toledo race was added as a result.
At Toledo, Jankowiak was fifth quickest in practice, sixth in qualifying and placed as high as fourth early in the race. That was until he came upon a car spinning in front of him. Jankowiak could not avoid a wreck and ended up with his #71 stuffed into the high-density foam safety barrier of the track.
At first, Jankowiak tried to drive away from the incident, but the car was too heavily damaged. So, then he exited the car and immediately ran to the right side of it to assess the damage. Next, he ran to the left rear corner and got under the car to assess the damage further. It was such an unusual sight that even the rescue worker tasked with helping him appeared confused as to what he was doing.
Jankowiak then plugged his radio back in to deliver a damage report to the team while simultaneously pleading with the track workers for a quick tow back to the pits.
The KLAS Motorsports team was waiting for their wounded racecar with the correct tools and parts, refusing to give up. They repaired the on pit road in a ballet of well organized chaos. NASCAR allows four crew members to go over the wall to service the car and at one point, Managing Partner Andy Seuss stepped away to rebuild a shock. Jankowiak put his helmet back on and filled in as the fourth man to work on the car.
Their efforts were successful. Even though they finished the race 45 laps down, the team moved up from a likely 26th-place finish to a 21st-place result. This yielded valuable points. The team only lost one position in the standings and Jankowiak is now ranked fourth in the driver points.
However, their primary short track car is now heavily damaged and that could keep them from adding even more races unless sponsorship help is found.
“We were here without a sponsor and then we wrecked the car,” Jankowiak told Frontstretch.com after the race. “We have to make something really special happen at Michigan and Pocono to justify adding (more races). We needed today to go perfectly. Probably the exact opposite of what we needed today is what happened.”
KLAS Motorsports has already committed to the next two ARCA Menards Series events, which are scheduled for Michigan Speedway and Pocono Speedway (PA). They are in need of additional marketing partners to add more races to their schedule.
Several loyal associate sponsors are fueling the #71 team throughout the season. At Toledo, that roster included Dak’s Markets, Acacia Energy, Automotive Consultants of Ithaca, Florida Safety Systems, Yukon Creek, Rotti Transport, Whelen Engineering and Schultz Engineered Products.
The ARCA Menards Series visits Michigan Speedway on Friday, June 5th for the Henry Ford Health 200. That event will be televised live on the Fox Sports 2 television network starting at 5pm ET.