September 18, 2012
Pritiko Breaks Through With 1st Feature of 12’
(London, ON) – Coming off their impressive second-place finish in this year’s edition of ‘The Great Canadian 200’, Matt Pritiko and his Global Warranty / Toyota-Town Toyota Camry were ready to move up one spot in the running order and finding victory lane on Friday, September 14th. “We had a great run in the Great Canadian 200,” explained Pritiko. “We led 170 laps and just missed winning at the end. We know we can win one.”
During practice, Pritko turned a large number of laps as the crew worked on the set-up of the blue #21, and when the sessions ended, Matt was the only car under the 19-season mark, turning a lap of 18.959 seconds on his final lap, almost 2/10th of a second faster than his nearest competitor. “That was the first time we’ve ever broke into the 19’s, and we were confident at that point that we had a car that was good enough to win tonight.”
Matt started fifth in his heat race, but ran into trouble early. “We were coming off turn four and I was racing with the Pennzoil car [David Elliott]. We got together, and I think Mark Watson got me from behind after the first contact. I did a complete 360, but luckily I didn’t hit anything. We were racing with Kirk Hooker later and I was overaggressive and dove it in on turn one and ended up spinning out.” Pritiko would finish eighth.
Pritiko rolled off seventh in the main event and by the time the field came around to put lap five on the board he had moved his Global Warranty machine to the head of the pack, passing Tyler Hendricks for the point. Matt set sail, walking away from Hendricks and opening up a three second lead during the first half of the event. With 15 laps to go, the only thing that could slow the leader happened, as the yellow flew for a two-car pileup in turn two. “That’s not what I wanted to see, but during the Great Canadian 200, I gained a lot of experience on restarts at the front of the pack, and I was able to use what I learned there to get out into the lead again.”
After holding serve on the restart, Pritko crept away from Hooker, who moved to second on the restart, and sped away to a 2.8 second lead when the checkers fell on lap 40. Pritko was ecstatic in victory lane, “This has been a long time coming this year. My spotter was counting down the laps and I was hoping that there would not be another caution. After the season we’ve had so far, this is awesome. We’ve had so many flat tires, and it’s nice to be back in victory lane.”
Hooker held off point leader Mark Watson for second while Stephen Richmond posted a career high fourth-place finish, and defending track champion Andrew Gresel rounded out the top-five.
1. Matt Pritiko, 2. Hooker, 3. Watson, 4. Richmond, 5. Gresel.
The Global Warranty team will be back in action this Friday night for Championship night at Delaware Speedway and Matt will be looking for another victory. “We are three points behind Gresel in the standings for second, and the goals on Friday are to capture second in points and win another race.”
The season will close up on Thanksgiving weekend at Peterborough Speedway for the annual Autumn Colours featuring competitors from all over the province. The team has also considered competing at Flamboro in Octoberfest, but that event is not confirmed.
For more information on Matt Pritiko, Global Warranty/ Global Warranty Racing, Toyota-Town, Delaware Speedway, please visit
http://www.mattpritiko.com/, http://www.globalwarranty.com/, http://www.toyota-town.com/, http://www.delawarespeedway.com/, or matt@mattpritiko.com. Or follow us at @mattpritiko
Release and photos by
http://www.maudsleymotorsports.com/. Celebration photo courtesy of Delaware Speedway.
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