Josh Brock earned his first Champion Racing Association (CRA) win Saturday at Anderson Speedway (IN). The Kentucky driver held strong on a fury of late-race restarts to take the checkered flag and score his biggest win to date.
“Getting this big win feels absolutely amazing for me and my whole crew,” said Brock. “I’ve been very fortunate to win a lot of races on a smaller scale and with different series, but as of right now this is the biggest win of my career. I was really calm on all the late restarts because I knew I could handle the pressure and I consider myself very good on restarts.”
Not only did Brock claim the win, but he also was at the top of the board in practice and set fast time earlier in the day. The clean sweep at Anderson was special and accomplished a goal set forth by his dad earlier in the day.
“At the beginning of the day my dad texted me telling me that this was my day and that I needed to win practice, the pole and the race,” said Brock. “After practice I called my dad and told him step one had been completed and after we sat on the pole I called him to tell him step two had been completed. As soon as I could after the race, I called and said step three had been completed.”
With the invert, Brock started the 125-lap race from the fifth position, but worked his way into the top three just past lap 50 and took over second on lap 60. From there Brock held steady for ten more laps until he was able to overtake the lead. A myriad of late-race cautions continued to keep the field tight, but driver of the No. 17 Stream Restoration Specialists machine held strong over the final 30 laps to earn the win.
“The 29 car (Austin Kunert) was really good on entry and center, but I had amazing forward bite in the car and I just knew I had to hold my line and be smooth with zero mistakes. I knew if I could do that, he could not beat us. Sometimes in racing you never have that ‘for sure’ feeling about winning, but on the last lap on the backstretch is when it really started hitting me hard that I was going to win my first CRA race.”
Later this week, Brock will travel to Bristol Motor Speedway for the test session for the US Short Track Nationals that will take place there on Sunday, May 20th.