Mansfield: Travis Kittleson race notes

CONCORD, NC (June 24, 2003) -- The fastest car at Mansfield Motorsports Speedway's inaugural ASA race simply belonged to Travis Kittleson. Problem is, the fastest car doesn't always win the race and the young Floridian knows that. After all, ASA is the premier short track series in America and the bump and grind is always part of racing on the short tracks of America. Yet, another top-five finish was added to his resume as Kittleson travels to Indianapolis Raceway Park this Saturday to do battle in ASA once again.

Kittleson finished fourth on Saturday night in the Ohio 250. He was running second with just 10 laps remaining and battling for the lead when an incident with fellow championship competitor, Robbie Pyle, pushed him back to the fifth spot. Kittleson kept his composure and rebounded to fourth place in the closing laps.

"It was such a one groove race track. If you got down inside of someone, your car would just get loose and slide up, commented Kittleson, who scored his fourth top-five finish of the season. "I door-slammed with Robbie pretty hard a couple of different times during the race and I think he wanted to pay me back. Again, that is racing. At that track, you had to make your moves and know that you are likely going to get into someone else. I have all the respect in the world for these guys.

"We had a really good, fast car. I know we were faster than (eventual race winner) Kevin Cywinski was, but he is a veteran and he knows how to block the bottom of the race track. Hey, I would have done the same thing if I were leading. That is just a part of racing.

"That was a fun race, but it is just so frustrating to have such a good car, a car that could have won the race, and not be able to do it. I know a lot of people thought that I was a little rough out there, but we wanted to come in here and be more aggressive this week.

"Some people are really pushing the rookies around this year. If we are faster than them, they won't get out of our way, but if they are behind us and faster, they expect us to move and they get mad if we are holding them up. Well, I knew we were going to have a fast car and I wanted to get up front. It may have looked a lot worse than it really was.

"It was fun, hard short track racing. Hopefully everything that happened will be left at the track and we'll all move on and try to get that first win at IRP."

Kittleson continues to hold on to the sixth-place in the ASA point standings and is second in the Rookie of the Year chase, trailing Reed Sorenson by just 121-markers.

The team heads next to Indianapolis Raceway Park this coming weekend for the Indiana 200. The event is set for Saturday evening at 9 pm (Eastern) and will be televised live on SPEED Channel.

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