RPW Column: Kevin Beach Looking To Bounce Back At Big Diamond In 2020
RPW Column By: BRAD KEITSOCK / RPW – LLEWELLYN, PA – For 36-year-old local racer, Llewellyn Pa’s Kevin Beach and his family-owned race team, the calendar year changing to 2020 probably couldn’t come quick enough.
Beach and his team had a year of lets just say frustration and searching in 2019 at Big Diamond Speedway.
The seventeen year veteran at the speedway has raced his way up through the different divisional ranks over the years experiencing great success in all of them.
But after moving into the speedway’s headline 358 Modified division in 2016, and parking the family owned #17x racing machine in victory lane late in August of 2018 for his career first modified win, bigger and better things were hoped for when the 2019 season rolled around.
When Big Diamond Speedway was resurfaced with an all new dark/orange clay before the season started last year, most figured it was going to take some time to figure the new surface out and how guys should set their cars up to “hook up to it”.
Beach was one of those racers and mentioned, “When the new surface went down it was just so different from what was on the track before and what we were used to. You start changing things from week to week to try and get better, and sometimes it would work a little bit and other times it just didn’t.”
Beach mentioned, “We weren’t sure what was going on. We go over this car front to back, top to bottom every week, and we just weren’t sure what the problem was, it was frustrating to say the least.”
As the 2019 season went bye and the month of August rolled around, Beach and his team, led by his father Red, started to see improvements with the race car but the setup and speed they were looking for just wasn’t quite there yet.
Beach offered, “At the Coal Cracker race we won our heat race, started on the front row of the 72 lap feature and we lead a good chunk of the early part of the race, the car was fast. But right off the bat I knew I was too good too early and it wasn’t going to last 72 laps till the end.”
Talking to some people after the Coal Cracker race and getting a few suggestions and ideas on what to do to try and help get their Bicknell race car dialed in the way Beach wanted it, led to a late season decision to venture to another local speedway and try out a few these new ideas and suggestions and see what happens.
“That last race of the year we really hit on something, the car felt the best it did all season long, I was really happy with it. It definitely has us looking forward to next season now.”
As the winter months move along so does the work in the Beach racing shop. “Our Bicknell race car is being rebuilt for next year as we speak. Just picked up some parts we needed for it over weekend. Our Morrison engine is ready to go. The body is almost done and Kevin Hartnett will be lettering it again in early January. The car is going to have a different look to it this year from the past couple of years.”
With the late season improvement and results for Beach and his #17x modified, expectations are elevated that once the gates swing open April 10th for the 2020 racing season at Big Diamond Speedway, Kevin Beach Racing will once again find its way back to the speedway’s victory lane.
