RPW Column: A Tail Of Different Days At Bristol Thursday For Keith Flach, Gary Tomkins & Marc Johnson

Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – BRISTOL, TN, The track is fast, the experience is unreal, and the Super DIRTcar Series racers are making history at the Last Great Coliseum, the Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend.

For competitors Keith Flach, Gary Tomkins and Marc Johnson, however, their days on Thursday during practice for this weekend’s big $10,000-to-win events couldn’t have been any further from each other.

Flach took his #43 out on to the speedway for the first practice session of the night, and the things never went right from that point. The Bicknell machine began to spit and sputter before coming to rest on the track.

“Somehow, we ended up with water in our fuel system,” Flach said. “We drained everything and had it straightened out. We anticipated a second set of laps on the last run of the night to take the car back out but ran out of time.”

Flach and his team are puzzled by what happened and how water could have found its way into their fuel.

“We’re not really sure how,” he said. “We had fresh fuel from sealed drums and everything was drained and gone through this winter. We believed we were good to go.”

The team did roll out their backup car to get some ideas on what the Bristol Motor Speedway is like. However, they don’t know which of their two pieces they’ll use to kick off the Throwdown on Friday.

“We got some good notes today,” he said. “We’ll make a determination on which direction to go Friday morning. Our primary had one type of suspension set-up and the back-up is another. It’s hard to gauge off of one lap before we had the issues but the backup is good. We’ll see in the AM.”

Gary Tomkins, on the other hand, was ecstatic after his Thursday on the famed half-mile.

“This place is just awesome,” Tomkins said. “When they say Coliseum, they mean it. It’s amazing the amount of seats it has for the size track. Pictures don’t do the track justice.”

Besides that, Tomkins’ car was quick right off the truck.

“Nobody knew what to expect coming here as far as setup goes,” he said. “We made some adjustments to the right side of the car and that made this thing feel really good. We just fine-tuned the rest of the night.”

Where did Tomkins feel he and his team made the most gains during the night’s testing session?

“We’re good on corner entry,” he said. “However, the car also rotates very well. If we can keep our car doing that, I think we’ll be in great shape.”

Marc Johnson was also another driver who was very quick on Thursday. The Guilderland, NY driver was near the top of the speed charts all night long and is very excited to see what he has for a piece come Friday and Saturday.

“The car we brought down here is pretty good,” Johnson said at the end of the night. “We’re fast and it’s very comfortable. I think we’ve got a good piece for both features.”

For Johnson, the track presents some challenges as he tries to figure out what the fastest way around is. However, he knows his team is up to the task.

“This place is extremely racy,” he said. “It’s extremely fast and you really have to be up on the wheel. No matter what, it’s a huge challenge to find the best way around but we’ll be ready.”