K&N Pro Series East News & Notes
The K&N Pro Series East makes its 12th visit to Greenville Pickens Speedway and last week’s pole-sitter, Ben Rhodes says his strategy this week will differ from last year’s event at the same track.
“I think adding the break and giving us four tires will make a huge difference over what we saw last September,” said Rhodes.
After drivers opted for a tire-saving strategy in the last race at Greenville, NASCAR made changes adding a half-way break and allowing teams four more tires for the event.
“Adding the break and giving us some tires is huge,” said Rhodes. “It changes the whole deal. Four fresh tires for the second half will make it pretty interesting.”
In his only series start in Greenville last September, Rhodes started 19th and finished sixth.
“It’s kind of a tricky place, but we did some testing there and think we found a few things and I’m looking forward to see how they work out,” he said.
Wins at Greenville are not easy. Four of the previous ten overall K&N East winners at the track have graduated to success in NASCAR’s national series. Darrell Wallace Jr, is the only two-time series winner. The other three prominent winners at Greenville are Austin Dillon, Dylan Kwasniewski and Joey Logano.
Of the drivers in the race, only Sergio Pena has gone to Victory Lane. The Winchester, VA native, won the September 2011 race.
Greenville is as tricky as it is historic. Eleven drivers on the entry list are looking to make their series début. Several have late-model experience at the track, but the K&N machines are a bit different.
Anthony Anders, began his track late-model title defense on March 15. The Greenville championship helped Anders to the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series state crown for South Carolina. Last season, Ryan Walker and Marty Ward challenged Anders for the title.
The one-lap qualifying record for the series at Greenville of 20.534 seconds (87.659-mph) is held by Brett Moffitt and established on April 2, 2011. The 150-lap race record of 1 hour, 2 minutes, 27 seconds (72.058-mph) was set on April 6, 2013 by Brandon Gdovic.
Read about the K&N Pro Series West race at Irwindale Speedway