Bobby East Hickory event report

East Second in Hickory Midget Feature

Brownsburg, Ind. (March 29, 2010) -- Bobby East led most of the USAC National Midget Series featurelast Wednesday at Hickory Motor Speedway but was forced to settle for second-place after being passed by eventual winner Shane Hmiel with 15 laps to go. Thursday night's activities were rained out after qualifying and two heat races were completed; no points were awarded due to Thursday's cancellation.

"We had a great car tonight and the guys on the team made all the right changes all day long to get us up here," said the driver of the Klatt Enterprises No. 4 Ford Racing Technologies/Beast Chassis Esslinger Ford-powered Beast. "We couldn't hold off Shane there at the end. I thought we did a good job of taking care of the tires for the end but Shane must have had a little more than we did. It was a lot of fun out there, the track is bumpy and has a lot of character to it so we really had to work hard tonight."

East still sits second in the USAC National Midget Series championship standings, 31 points behind leader Brad Sweet and 15 points ahead of third-place Tracy Hines.

East returns to USAC National Midget Series action April 11 at the quarter-mile Anderson Speedway in Anderson, Ind.

Beast Note: Shane Hmiel scored his first career USAC National Midget Series feature victory driving a Beast chassis. It was the second consecutive USAC National Midget victory for Beast, both coming on different surfaces; Bobby East won in the Beast dirt midget at Perris Auto Speedway on February 27.

-source: -BRC-