LMS: Travis Dassow Berlin race summary

Travis Dassow Survives for Eighth Place Finish at Berlin
20-Year-Old Driver & TD Racing Development Holds On To ASA LM Point Lead

MILWAUKEE, WI (June 18, 2007) -- Some weeks, you go to the race track to win and other weeks, you just go to the track hoping to survive.

Even though Travis Dassow and his TD Racing Development team are the point leaders in ASA Late Model Challenge Series competition, they were not expecting to go to Berlin Speedway (MI) and dominate the race. Honestly, they knew that the race date at that facility was going to be a tough one. It wasn't a track where driver or team had had any luck in the past, so it had the possibility of becoming an Achilles' Heal to their championship battle hopes.

But Saturday night's Tradition 200 race instead became a decent night for the team. No, they didn't win the race, but they did manage to meet their goals for it -- with Dassow logging a solid top 10 finish in the event.

Dassow started 12th and finished eighth in the race, retaining his point lead.

"It (tonight) was alright," said Dassow. "It was better than I thought it was going to be. It was actually pretty respectable the first 150 laps, we were just riding around. We were trying to save our stuff as much as we could. The last 50 laps we checked the left rear tire and it was almost down to the cord. Just to stay on the lead lap and pull off in one piece is what we wanted to do. I think it helped push our points lead to. This is the one race I was trying to get through and we got through it."

Berlin is a tough place to learn to get around, and without the benefit of much experience on the bullring, Dassow hasn't quite gotten enough experience to excel there yet.

"I think Berlin is just one of those tracks that if you don't have thousands and thousands of laps around it, this place is a pretty tough place to get around. There is no grip and it just eats up tires. I didn't run good here last year and neither did Howie and the whole WalTom crew. So it definitely made us feel good to get a decent top 10 finish out here."

Plus, it was a good point night for the TD Racing Development team with the season now exactly half finished.

"I'm not sure exactly, but I think we pretty much doubled our points lead," said Dassow. "I think that's going to give us a little bit of cushion heading into these next couple races. We're definitely going to try and win all of these races. We can kind of settle down and not have to worry about anything and just try to gain a couple points in the points lead.

-credit: tdr