Adam McAuliffe & Team Enjoying Early Season Success In 2018

Column By: DYLAN FRIEBEL / RPW – BROADALBIN, NY – When Adam McAuliffe and his team left Super Dirt Week in 2017, they knew they had a good piece under them and the building blocks for a great 2018.

However, it wasn’t Adam’s plan to travel to different tracks this early in the new year to see if their off-season hard work had paid off…but he did, and it has.

“We came out of Oswego last year running a DKM Cyclone…the first Sportsman guy to do that…and we put it off the chart,” he said. “We had our program pretty much figured out. We like to keep our stuff pretty clean and I get called the ‘Asphalt Princess’ for that but that’s fine. I like to keep our stuff nice.”

With all their hard work during the winter months, the 234 team wanted to make sure they were ready for the season up here in the Capital Region of New York, so Adam’s decision to travel early in 2018 was an easy one.

“Our team didn’t think we were going to head out anywhere else or travel because it mostly comes out of my pocket,“ he said. “With no races going on up here in New York, we decided to travel on down to Georgetown. One of our fellow competitors, Dave Constantino, was headed down and he works with DKM (the company who builds the Cyclone Chassis). He was super fast out the box when we got down there Friday for the time trials and we time trialed third ourselves.”

When Saturday rolled around it was a different story.

“We went back Saturday and it just didn’t feel good in hot laps,” he said. “My buddy Tommy Conroy told me that if you don’t feel good in practice, you’re probably gonna be good in the feature. The car was alright in the beginning of the feature, but it got better and we ended up finishing third down there.”

Shortly after that, the decision to head to Bridgeport was an easy one as well.

“A few weeks went by and we all said we might as well go to Bridgeport,’” McAuliffe said. “Right out of the box we were fast. We were quick in practice and our heat and we redrew the pole for that race.”

Then, it was game on.

“We started on some greener tires and they just didn’t fire,” he said. “David Schilling, a local guy from up here, ended up getting around us. However, he ended up with tire issues and we ended up in victory lane. The Cyclone was fast no matter where i put her.”

With a good baseline of early season notes, it appears as if Adam will follow much of the same plan as last year for the “regular season” Of dirt racing.

“We plan to head up to Malta (Albany-Saratoga) every Friday,” he said. “We like Lyle (Devore, Albany-Saratoga’s promoter). He’s a great guy and got a good thing going there. We go there for the fans. We love going for them.”

While he’ll chase the Malta Sportsman title, he does have plans to run other places this season.

“We might venture out to Fonda or Glen Ridge when there’s the occasional rain out, but I just can’t race three nights a week,” Adam said. “We really want to push for the Short Track Super Series Southern Region Sportsman Championship. (Brett) Deyo has a great series going and it’s something we as a team want to do.”

Adam also has people to thank week in and week out.

“I can’t thank DKM Fabrications, Integra shocks and all my sponsors enough,” he said. “The fans are why we love showing up so thank you to them as well. Also, thank you to my brother Kyle. He’s there for me every week and it couldn’t happen without him.”

You can see Adam and the rest of the stout field that paces Albany-Saratoga Speedway every Friday night from April through September, starting Friday, April 20th with their season Opener.