Will Gerrits Racing’s two car effort of young guns Will Gerrits and Tyler Brabant showed their capabilities in 2020 with 4 Top 5 finishes and one feature win, all the while struggling with bad luck and mechanical gremlins throughout the season. The hope was to kick those issues to the curb and come out firing in 2021. Unfortunately, lady luck is a fickle beast, the the WGR team felt her wrath on the opening night of the 2021 MSA Sprints season at Beaver Dam Raceway this past Saturday night.
The night got off to a decent start for the 21 and 99 teams, both qualifying toward the front of their heat races. However, the MSA officials lost the times for Heat race #1, meaning all 4 heats would revert to pill draw for their starting positions. Will Gerrits lined up 4th in Heat 3, with Tyler Brabant also starting 4th in Heat 4. Gerrits rocketed around the high side in the Ditto 21 to grab 3rd on the start with fellow #TeamMAS driver Jack Vanderboom in tow. With 3 laps to go, 2nd place running Doug Wondra’s motor expired with Gerrits and Vanderboom hot on his heels, and thus promoted the Midwest AutoSports drivers to 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Both would battle hard in the closing laps and finish in that order, with Gerrits in 2nd from 4th on the grid. A solid run that netted the Waupun, WI native enough passing points to transfer to the feature.
Brabant got off to a solid start in his heat race, using the middle of the track to hang onto his 4th starting spot. On lap 3, Brabant attempted a move on the inside, and looped the Axel Racing 99 around in turn 2 on the already slick surface. He would recover and move back up into 5th to limit the damage done. However, Brabant didn’t earn enough passing points to transfer to the feature, and thus would be forced to run the B Main.
The B Main got off to a rocky start for Tyler, with the 99 falling back from 6th at the start to 8th on track. However, some expert driving from Brabant on the top side of the ⅜ mile clay surface saw him navigate past Mike Yurmanovich, Scott Conger, and Jason Johnson in the closing laps to grab 5th at the checkered, earning a spot in the night’s 25 lap A Main.
Gerrits rolled out 3rd for the feature, with Brabant relegated to 21st at the green. Tyler’s race didn’t last very long, as the mechanical gremlins he had been battling all night finally became too much for the Axel Racing 99 and he would pull his machine back into the pits. Gerrits’ race was another story. “The Flying Dutchman” lived up to his moniker. After falling to the bottom half of the top 10 on the start, Gerrits immediately found the top side and began to make up ground. Blazing past Paul Pokorski, Tyler Davis and Justin Miller to find himself in a dogfight with MSA legend Danny Schlafer for the 5th spot. After an early yellow, Gerrits and Schlafer resumed their battle for 5th, trading multiple sliders and racing hard and clean for multiple laps before another yellow came out in the later stages of the event, with Schlafer in 5th and Gerrits in 6th.
On the restart, 4th running Kurt Davis hit the dry slick middle of the track in turns 1 and 2, and spun his 6K around directly in front of Gerrits and the rest of the top 10. Will had absolutely nowhere to go and clipped Davis’ tire and caused heavy front end damage to the Ditto 21. An otherwise extremely promising night ended with Will Gerrits riding back to the pits on the back of a hook. Unfortunate for sure, but Gerrits was optimistic when asked to summarize the night’s events.
“Just a rough way to end a great night.” Gerrits said. “Anytime you can put both cars in the show when there’s 34 cars here is a success. We were really fast in the heat race and to start up near the front and be reeling in guys like Danny, Travis [Arenz], and Tim [Haddy]... it is disappointing to end the race due to something out of my control and the same goes for Tyler’s early exit. But we know we were fast, and we ran well at Chilton last year with Tyler on the podium and myself going 11th to 2nd in the B and then forward again in the A. So we’ll pick up and try again on Saturday.”
The MSA tour moves to Gravity Park Speedway in Chilton, WI for the series’ 2nd ever visit to the ¼ mile banked bullring. Tickets will be available at the track this Saturday night.
You can follow Will Gerrits Racing on their social medias, on Facebook at Will Gerrits Racing and on Twitter @WillGerrits, along with Midwest AutoSports on Facebook at MAS AutoSports and Twitter @mas_autosports.
Will Gerrits Racing would like to thank all of their sponsors for their continued support throughout the 2021 season.
Ditto
Axel Racing
NAPA MPEC
A.Glewen and Sons Excavation
The Rock Golf Club
Anything and Everything Home Maintenance
Amramp
Rock River Eyewear
Aaron Gerrits Rhemody Foundation
Midwest AutoSports
Horicon Bank
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