Sarah Cornett-Ching Gears Up for 2016 NASCAR K&N East Season

Posted on by
Sarah Cornett-Ching at 9 pm ET on Monday, January 11, 2016.

Sarah Cornett-Ching at 9 pm ET on Monday, January 11, 2016.

Sarah Cornett-Ching is our guest on Fan4Racing NASCAR & Race Talk on Monday, January 11, 2016 at 9 pm ET. Call 929-477-1790 or tweet @Fan4RacingSite, @Sal_Sigala or @beberly18 with any questions or comments during our LIVE broadcast. 

Getting her season off to a fast start, Canadian Sarah Cornett-Ching made her way to New Smyrna, Florida this past weekend to race the Red Eye 100 with her Race 101 team. She’ll be racing there again when the K&N Pro Series East kicks off their season at New Smyrna Speedway in February. With testing earlier in the week, practice time on Friday and the race on Saturday, Cornett-Ching is happy with her top-ten finish and feels her seat time this past weekend was a competitive classroom, giving her and her team a head start for their next trip to the track next month.

“The first race of the NASCAR K&N Series is here in February, and there’s no substitute for track time,” she said. “Doing these tests and running the Red Eye 100 will give me multiple days and a couple hundred laps of track time for our K&N opener in six weeks.”

After finishing in tenth-place on Saturday, Cornett-Ching gave her post-race debrief of the Red Eye 100 on Twitter.

 

The Red Eye 100 has a 30-year tradition of getting the season started for super late-model racers and this was Cornett-Ching’s first race of the 2016 season. Piloting the same super late-model chassis that she drove for the first time over Thanksgiving at Southern National Motorsports Park in North Carolina, she was able to repeat her top-ten finish from that race. But there are differences between her super late-model and her K&N late model; so she brought both to the track this past week to help enhance her understanding of their differences.

“We brought both the K&N and the super late-model so I could see the differences in how they drive at this track,” she explained. “The super was great over Thanksgiving, but it was my first time racing one. So, our biggest goal this weekend is simply to get me more seat time. Supers don’t drive anything like a K&N car, but this will give me the confidence and track time I need to come here in February and maximize our practice sessions.”

In the 2015 season Cornett-Ching finished seventh in the ARCA Racing Series point standings with five top-ten finishes in 20 starts. In the Rookie of the Year standings, she finished third, 28 points behind second-place David Levine and 54 points behind first-place, Kyle Weatherman.

Cornett-Ching is certainly someone to keep an eye on next month for the K&N East season opener at New Smyrna Speedway after gearing up with some valuable seat time in the Red Eye 100.