Travis Dassow Brings Home Second Place at Salem Speedway
2008 has been a roller coaster ride for 2007 ASA Late Model Challenge Series Champion Travis Dassow, no one can question that. He ended 2007 on top, but 2008 has been a constant struggle with Lady Luck. But it seems that his roller coaster ride may be coming to an end with his latest top-five finish in the ASA Late Model Challenge Series event at Salem Speedway.
“The weekend just started off good for us,” said Dassow. “On Friday we had a really good car in practice. We were just dialing it in and reeling it in. We ended up qualifying fifth. The field was really tight for the first five or six cars during qualifying, so we knew there was going to be some competition. After the inversion, we ended up starting third.”
Dassow’s solid qualifying run continued well into the race.
“We just took our time in the race and tried to stay out of trouble. We were running around fourth at the break. We just kind of stayed out of trouble, and at the end it became a two-car race between me and (eventual race winner) Sean Murphy.”
That two-car race could have had a very different ending, if a late caution hadn’t flown on the track, in turn ending Dassow’s chances at getting by the leader.
“We were really good on long runs, and we were working on Murphy pretty hard with about 15 to go when the caution came out. It took us about 15-20 laps for our car to really come in, so after the caution came out Murphy had the upper hand on us.
“I think if the caution hadn’t have come out, we would have gotten by him. We had a couple of runs at him before the caution. We were able to get up beside him and then got blocked by a lapped car. So that kind of hurt us there. We were working him pretty hard those last few laps before the caution. Even Sean told me that if the caution wouldn’t have come out that we would have gotten him. But it was just the way the cautions fell.”
Despite not bringing home the checkered flag, Dassow will take a second-place finish any day, especially when you have your eyes on the prize of winning another championship.
“This second-place finish feels awesome; especially with all the bad luck that we have been having this year. I think we moved up to fourth in the points after this weekend,
which is great, but we still have a long way to go to try and win another championship.
“Hopefully the bad luck is behind us for the rest of the season and we can go out there and start getting some wins. I feel like things are starting to click again.”
Dassow will find out pretty quickly what Lady Luck has in store for him this weekend when he heads to Madison International Speedway for the ASA Late Model North event. It’s a track that he is very familiar with, and one that he hopes will be the true turnaround for the 2008 season.
Travis Dassow.
“We race at Madison a lot, and I am excited about going back there,” added Dassow. “I actually hold the track record there in qualifying. We finished second last year, and I know we have a car to go back there this year and definitely compete for the win. It would be a great place to bring home our first win of the season.”
Dassow will be back around the track this Friday when he heads to Madison International Speedway for the ASA Late Models North event.
For more information on Travis Dassow, please contact Mike Twist at (207) 590-1786 and visit http://tdrace.net for all the latest news.
