K&N NASCAR Pro Series West Season Comes to a Close with Dylan Kwasniewski on Top
- Dec 12, 2012
He already was the youngest driver to win the Sunoco Rookie of the Year award and the youngest driver to win a NASCAR K&N Pro Series West race. With a runner-up finish in the season finale at Phoenix International Raceway, Kwasniewski secured his first K&N Pro Series West championship, denying his Gene Price Motorsports teammate, Greg Pursley, a chance to repeat as champion.
“I haven’t even taken it into consideration yet,” the 17-year-old Kwasniewski said. “It’s awesome. All of this started with my dad. This was his legacy and I wanted to make sure this happened for him.” Randy Kwasniewski, Dylan’s dad, died three years ago. Since then, his son has won five races in the K&N Pro Series West and has become the top driver in the series. “We finally got the championship,” Kwasniewski said. “All I had to do was go out there and drive. These guys worked their butts off to get the car ready for me. I have to thank the crew for it. It was a great year. We’re going to go into the East Series and hopefully do the same thing.”
Kwasniewski plans to move to the K&N Pro Series East next season and perhaps race in select NASCAR Camping World Truck Series events. “I’m going to go and race against those guys,” Kwasniewski said. “I think it’s going to be the same thing. Those guys in the East Series race really good. I’m excited to go out there and run with them. They’re all really good drivers, same as in the West, but I gotta get some more diversity and some more seat time in different cars. I’m excited. I’m really looking forward to going out there.”
Michael Self won the race, his third of the season. He started on the front row with pole winner Cale Conley. Self took the lead on the first lap and was out front for all 50 laps. “Not a whole lot to say. Just an unbelievable race,” Self said. “The car underneath us was phenomenal, lap after lap. It never missed a beat. From the start we knew what we had to do. A 50-lap race is really short. We knew those tires would last the entire length. Just get out and get in front as early as we can and pull a gap, that’s exactly what we did. It makes things comfortable when we have a good car like that.” Conley finished behind Self and Kwasniewski in third place in the race. “We had a pretty good race,” Conley said. “Michael Self raced us really hard and clean there the first couple laps and he got the lead from us. We had a pretty tight race car. It was hard to force the issue especially under breaking, getting into the corner.”
“Coming to places like this makes a really big difference,” Self said. “There’s a lot of room to race at tracks like this. Hopefully when we move in to the upper series, the Trucks, Nationwide, even the Cup Series, these are the tracks we are going to be racing on. Really looking forward to getting the experience on these tracks and making the best of them when we have the opportunity too.” Austin Dyne finished in 13th place at Phoenix and won the Sunoco Rookie of the Year, finishing one point ahead of Cameron Hayley. Find K&N products for your vehicle using the K&N application search then use the K&N dealer search to find a K&N dealer in your part of the world. |
