T.J. Flynn Overcomes Obstacles to Land First Career Top Five

Kicks off 2014 CRA Street Stocks Series with Career High Finish

April 10, 2014

Greenwood, Indiana (April 10, 2014) – Preparations for the Stealth Trailers 40 at Lucas

Oil Raceway were quite eventful for TJ Flynn and his team. “We got our engine back

Thursday night and spent all night installing it. We then spent another late night fixing a

few unexpected problems with the rear axle, but by 3 AM Saturday we thought we were

ready to go to the track” said TJ.

Flynn Racing had encountered more problems with the front end Saturday morning, and

was unable to make any practice laps. Sunday morning the team encountered another

set of hurdles with leaks under the hood which had limited TJ to minimal practice. Before

qualifying, the team had fixed the issues and was ready to lay down two laps to

determine where they stood among the Stealth Trailers CRA Street Stocks Powered by

Jeg’s field.

TJ qualified a disappointing 14th position but was happy there were no issues with the car

this time. Flynn said “I knew I was not going to be able to run a competitive lap in

qualifying with minimal track time and so many unknowns in our setup. After qualifying, I

knew starting on the outside was going to be an advantage and I was confident in my

ability to pass a few cars if the setup wasn’t too far off.”

As soon as the green flag flew for the field, so did TJ. Immediately he had passed multiple cars and found himself in 10th before the first yellow flew on lap 7. Once again Flynn used the outside to his advantage and worked his way up to 8th on the restart. “Once I made my way into 8th I knew I was fast when I kept the leaders within striking distance but I couldn’t quite catch up to them.”

For the middle 20 laps of the race Flynn worked hard to conserve his car in hopes to gain a couple more spots at the end. “I noticed I was catching up to the car in 7th place on corner entry and tried to use that to my advantage.” Flynn made the successful move for 7th and set his sights on 6th when a caution came out on lap 35. “At first I thought I was still in 7th and was trying to figure out how I was going to make the inside line work but the 63 car dropped out and I was in 6th.” Flynn again made the high line work on the restart and pulled into 5th, but it was no easy task holding off the 96 car for the remaining 5 laps.

TJ earned a career best 5th place on Sunday as well as earning the TCI Automotive Hard Charger Award for gaining the most positions throughout the race. “It felt great to run well at Lucas Oil Raceway; a track I grew up watching NASCAR and USAC races. I guess you could say I “knocked off the rust” earlier this season with RACE 101, running practice in a truck and late model at Hickory.” Flynn said, “I could not have done it without the McGunegill power under the hood, my parents’ support through the ups and downs of racing, the advice and help of Russell Winegar, the fab skills of Sonny Bratcher, and the efforts of everyone associated with Race 101. This was my tribute to all of them, and I hope I can reward their faith and support with more top 5 finishes this season.”

To follow TJ and his racing adventures this season, you can follow him on Twitter at @TJFlynn30 and “Like” his Facebook page “TJ Flynn Driver Page”.