Sarah Cornett-Ching at 9:35 pm ET on Thursday, March 24, 2016 Photo – Getty Images
Sarah Cornett-Ching is our guest on Fan4Racing NASCAR Weekend Preview on Thursday, March 24, 2016 at 9:35 pm ET. Call 929-477-1790 or tweet @Fan4RacingSite or @beberly18 with any questions or comments during our LIVE broadcast.
While the three NASCAR national series are off this weekend, the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East will head to South Carolina and Greenville Pickens Speedway. The stars and cars of the K&N East will take to the flat half-mile oval for the third race of the 2016 season. Only eight drivers from last year’s race are on the entry list and there are 11 rookies vying for the Sunoco Rookie of the Year Award.
One of those rookies is Sarah Cornett-Ching, who is competing for the K&N East Rookie of the Year title this season while also running some ARCA Racing Series and CARS Super Late Model Tour events.
Cornett-Ching finished seventh in the ARCA Racing Series championship standings in 2015, recording five top-ten finishes ,which led to the opportunity to move to the K&N East full-time this season with Tony Blanchard and RACE 101.
“We raced a handful of events with them last year, I really liked how the races were organized, the parity of the rules package and what it offered me as a driver,” said Cornett-Ching, who made three K&N East starts in 2015.
“As my career continues to advance, I’ll be racing on some of the same tracks and with a lot of the same drivers and teams. Combine that with the added value that the NASCAR brand can bring to me and my partners, it was really a no-brainer.”
Speaking of partners, Cornett-Ching and her Race 101 team recently landed a big partner in the Williamson-Dickie Manufacturing Company. The family owned company is the number one manufacturer of work apparel worldwide and is a perfect fit for Cornett-Ching.
“It’s a brand I’ve seen my dad wear every day of his working life and one I have had the privilege of wearing throughout my career as a welder as well,” said Cornett-Ching. “Not only do they make quality workwear but they have a great selection of women’s workwear and casual wear too.”
Race 101 brought on veteran crew chief Jerry Babb this season to head up their K&N East program. Babb most recently worked with Bassett Racing drivers Ronnie and Dillon Bassett and has also worked with Corey LaJoie, Alex Bowman and John Hunter Nemechek.
Race 101 team owner Tony Blanchard is now able to devote more time to the development of Cornett-Ching’s career and the business development of the team, while Babb oversees the preparation of the team’s cars for 2016.
To continue her development, the 24-year-old Cornett-Ching also competed in the ARCA Racing Series season-opener at Daytona International Speedway back in February, and is tentatively planning to compete in other ARCA events at larger tracks this season.
“The K&N Series has a great mix of tracks and is a really good place to build my skill-set and improve my confidence as a driver, but ARCA still offers valuable opportunities for big-track and radial tire experience ,” the Summerland, British Columbia native said.
“Seat time is seat time, no matter what I’m driving. So to have laps around places like Chicago, Talladega or Kansas is extremely valuable, especially when I have an opportunity to move up to XFINITY or the Truck Series in the future.”
The K&N East are at South Carolina’s Greenville-Pickens Speedway on Saturday, March 26th at 7 pm ET. NBC Sports Network is broadcasting the Kevin Whitaker Chevrolet 150 on Saturday, April 2nd at 7:30 pm ET.