Bryson and the Devo Motorsports team took the No. 24 Barringer Construction/ Your Pie/ Victory Lane Indoor Karting/ Wild Bill Fitness machine and rolled into Charlotte Motor Speedway (NC) for Round 1 of Bojangles Summer Shootout. Still figuring out the new Hoosier tires, the team knew they would need some practice time to make the necessary adjustments to get them to the front. With each round, the car got better and better. Bryson said, “The car is a little slow, but we are consistently getting better every time we hit the track.”
The time came for qualifying. The track was hot and a little greasy, but Bryson did the best he could with it, running a 17.659. This was good enough for a tenth place start, but meant he would have to run in a heat race. The top five lock in to their position, and the remainder heat race to hopefully improve their position. Bryson started 4th and was pretty confident he could improve. On the initial start, he got stuck on the outside with no chance to get down and dropped to fifth. It wouldn’t be long before Bryson found a way to get back to fourth. It appeared he would finish there, but with 5 to go, the third place car made the tiniest mistake and Bryson was there to capitalize and take the position. He finished third which meant he would start ninth in his feature.
The sun had begun to set and the track was cooling off when the Pro feature started. Rolling off on the inside, Bryson was happy. He’s been in this position before, 25 laps to move up quite a few spots, but he was up to the challenge. He battled with the cars in front of him pretty hard which allowed the top four cars to get strung out. On lap nine, Bryson saw an opportunity to take eighth and was successful. Lap ten would provide the exact same scenario and Bryson found himself in seventh. The next few laps were spent catching the cars in front of him until he got a little help. With seven laps to go, a caution came out for a spin in the back of the field. Approaching the choose cone, Bryson opted to go to the high side and improve his position to sixth. While this is normally a risky move, Bryson rolled the dice and it paid off. He forced his way to the inside and retained his position. With four to go, Bryson hooked up with the fifth place car and together, they passed the car in fourth. coming out of turn four with two laps to go, Bryson would take a hard hit from behind and get loose. This caused him to lose 3 positions and finish seventh.
The team made great strides toward a winning car, and held their heads high. They gave it all they had and learned some key things they can use to their advantage going in to Round 2 next week.
