Danny O’Brien Races Forward To Third Brockville Win To Start July

Story By: CLAYTON JOHNS / DANNY O’BRIEN RACING – INVERARY, ONT – Danny O’Brien scored his second straight win at Brockville Ontario Speedway when he drove from the 13th starting spot to the point to grab the checkered flag last Saturday night.

The Inverary, Ont. driver struggled to advance in his heat race on a narrow track and managed a fifth-place finish. The result was still enough for O’Brien to maintain his handicap, which resulted in the 13th starting spot for the 30-lap main event.

“The track had a lot of gravel-like dirt on it in the heat and it was tough. We couldn’t go anywhere,” O’Brien explained. “They gave us a short hot lap session before the Feature and we just put in what we normally run there. The track was really black and racey.”

The racing surface was exactly what O’Brien needed for the main event. In the early laps, O’Brien was patient before making his charge to the front.

“We didn’t go anywhere for the first five or six laps, but then we got going good,” O’Brien explained. “We lucked into a late race caution. We got a yellow with six to go, and that helped us out.”

The late restart saw O’Brien take the green flag from fourth and he took full advantage of the track position and quickly jumped to second. From there, he set out to track down leader Aaron Pugh and made the winning pass with four laps to go.

“We made the pass on the bottom,” O’Brien said of the winning move. “He was running middle to top, but there was one brown spot around the bottom where I could chug around the tires pretty good and we just kept picking away at it.”

The win was O’Brien’s fifth in 14 starts this season and his 10th top-five finish. So far, O’Brien is happy with how his season has progressed and the improvements he has made along the way.

“We struggled at Can-Am the last time we were there, but that’s the only night it’s really been off,” O’Brien said. “We have something right now that’s working everywhere. Everything’s going smoothly. Hopefully we can continue that.”

O’Brien will be back in action this weekend with a pair of events in the Border Battle Series. He’ll run the first of two 35-lap Features on Friday, July 13 at Can-Am Speedway in Lafargeville, NY before returning to Brockville on Saturday, July 14.