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Harrison Burton wins his first NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship at Dover

Burton won the National Fallen Firefighters 125 presented by Carl Deputy & Sons Builders and erased an eight-point deficit to capture his first K&N Pro Series East championship.

“What an honor to win both the race and championship at Dover, it’s pretty freaking cool,” Burton said. “It’s what I dreamed to do as a kid, win races at tracks like this and win NASCAR championships. To come out and do that is pretty surreal. I’m pretty pumped up about it.”

Burton was eight points behind Todd Gilliland in the K&N Pro Series East standings before the race at Dover. Gilliland ran into trouble when he blew a tire on lap 56. He dropped out of contention and cleared the way for Burton to take the championship. Burton still had to finish the race and collect enough points to pass Gilliland for the K&N Pro Series East title.

Harrison Burton is the youngest driver to win a NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship

“This race kind of caps it all off for this team,” Burton said after the race. “A bunch of guys who never quit and I’m glad I fit into that system where people that put everything we got into what we’re doing. Now that it’s all come to fruition and we got to bring home two trophies, it’s a big relief and we’re going to go have fun now.”

Burton won his fifth race of the season. NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series driver Joey Logano was the youngest driver to win a K&N Pro Series East championship at 17 years, 3 months, 28 days in 2007. Burton ended up with 593 points, eight points ahead of Gilliland in the final K&N Pro Series East standings. Burton joined his dad, Jeff Burton, as a NASCAR race winner at Dover International Speedway. Jeff Burton won the Cup Series race at Dover in 2006.

Harrison Burton won five NASCAR K&N Pro Series East races including the season finale at Dover

“This one is really disappointing,” said Gilliland who leads the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West championship standings with two races to go. “I felt like we had pretty good control of it going in here. We were just as fast as Burton in the race. Just having a tire go down like that is heartbreaking for sure. I’m really proud of everyone at Bill McAnally Racing. We’ve had the fastest cars here all year, just didn’t have the luck to go along with it.”

Garcia, who led a race-high 71 laps, dropped to 10th place. Chase Purdy won the Sunoco Rookie of the Year in the K&N Pro Series East despite a last-place finish in the race at Dover.

Rob Turkington was in the hunt for the Drivers' Title up to final race but was hit by a competitor

But not so, despite the aforementioned setbacks. The "long view" is that Team BMW won the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) Manufacturers title, and the Team title, along with Colin Turkington finishing second in Drivers’ standings, and the still-recovering Rob Collard, who sat out the final races, still finished fifth among drivers.

Colin Turkington had positive words for the entire Team BMW operation after the race: “It’s a great achievement by the whole team to win the Teams’ and Manufacturers’ titles today and everybody should be congratulated for the hard work they’ve put in over the season.”

Rob Turkington drove from 15th to win in the second-to-last race of the year

WSR left F3 at the end of the 1995 season as the most successful team in the history of the series, both in terms of race victories and titles. The decision was made to apply its tremendous capabilities to the British Touring Car Championship.

For 2007, the team switched to BMW, and today runs BMW 125i M Sport models that were designed, engineered, and constructed in the WSR shops (unlike many other series around the world where BMW provides the team with a turn-key race car). With 2017’s double-title success, WSR has now won an incredible six outright BTCC crowns in the past four years.

The entire West Surrey Racing team joins in the celebration at Brands Hatch

Team Principal Dick Bennetts summed up the season: “Every member of the team can be very proud of what we’ve achieved and we are also extremely thankful to our partners, technical suppliers, and sponsors, without whom none of this would have been possible.”

And as one of those technical suppliers, K&N is proud to have been part of this championship effort and congratulate Dick, Colin, Rob, and the entire WSR team for an excellent season. To quote WSR from its Twitter post: Let’s do it again in 2018.

Bo Butner took the win at Maple Grove Raceway In Pennsylvania

A group of Gold Star Moms, whose children have died in combat fighting for the United States military, placed decals with the names of their children on Butner’s car. He counted them over the weekend. There were 27 decals on his car. “I needed them all,” Butner said. “It didn’t hurt.”

After the races, the Gold Star Moms joined a contingent that visited Washington, D.C. the Sunday of the races at Maple Grove Raceway. Butner said the pressure of producing for the Gold Star Moms was greater than any of the races over the weekend. “That was the most pressure,” Butner said. “I haven’t done a lot military-wise in my life. I have some military in my family. But when you actually get to meet the moms and they’re there and they’re hugging you and you’re saying, ‘Yeah, I’m going to get your kids in the winner’s circle.’”

Butner was true to his words. He won at Maple Grove. It was his fourth career win in NHRA Pro Stock, all coming in 2017. It also put him in first place in the Pro Stock standings, 41 points ahead of Anderson, after two races into the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs. But winning for the Gold Star Moms trumped taking the lead in the Pro Stock standings. “I am glad we can do that for them,” Butner said. “I’m sure they’re all very happy and I’m sure I will hear from each and every one of them. It’s a good cause and we’ll do something else with them I’m sure.”

Pro Stock Driver Bo Butner takes home his fourth Wally in Pro Stock at Maple Grove Racway

“He’s learning the car,” Butner said. “I’m pretty sure he knows a lot about the car. Way more than Jason. He’s been great. He’s learning. It’s great to have him.

“The KB team is strong and we showed it today and through qualifying.” Butner talked about winning the NHRA Pro Stock championship at the beginning of the season. He entered the season without a win in Pro Stock. He has four now and his team is clicking at the right time.

“It’s kind of hard for me to grasp,” Butner said. “Four more races left. We have to do our job.

“Very fortunate for those three days in a row. It’s tough. You can win from 16 here. A lot of people have done it. I didn’t do the best job driving, but I did just good enough. I’ll take that.”

The Winners Circle after the races at Maple Grove Raceway featured Butner, Force, Capps, and Krawiec

The next NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event is at Gateway Motorsports Park in Illinois, the third race in the Countdown to the Championship playoffs.

Queen Racing is flying high in the performance UTV world

Queen’s passion for making things go faster is the fruit of his competitive nature. The durability of his products and the quality of his builds reflect rigorous testing and an amazing attention to detail. K&N sat down with Queen to find out what makes him high-performance powersports royalty.

K&N: How did you get started in racing and wrenching?

Mark Queen: I got into racing as a child. I was 8 years old when I did my first snowmobile race and that is when the addiction took over. I have been racing ever since. I started off racing sleds in the wintertime and started racing motocross in the rest of the seasons. I started doing really well in both sports, getting wins and moving up into the semi-pro races and winning there also. Things were looking great, and I was getting some good support from sponsors, but I was extremely abusive on my equipment. It seemed I could break anything out there with my riding style, so I started working on my bikes and sleds every day after school at my family's body shop.

Queen Racing's Lake Havasu City home base is perfect for both desert and water racing

MQ: When I was 17, I had a severe accident. I crashed hard and broke my femur, back, and pelvis. I came out of surgery with zero feeling or movement from the waist down. It was a tough day not knowing how I would end up. Fortunately, after a few days, I started to get some feeling back and the rehab process started. One of my sponsors, Aquatrends, invited me to come and race one of their jet skis once I got back in race shape. So I took that chance and went to my first jet ski race. I got a bad start in the first moto, but came back from last all the way to second place. Now knowing how the start system worked, I was ready for moto 2. I got a 3rd place start and ended up lapping the 2nd place finisher. Needless to say, I was hooked. That year I went to the IJSBA World Finals and dominated, and again lapped 2nd place in the second moto. I left the Finals with a new factory Polaris sponsorship and new boats.

K&N: So how did that morph into your involvement in UTV realm?

Mark Queen's high performance tuning is driven by testing and data analysis

K&N: What are your current racing efforts?

MQ: I took some years off from racing while starting my business and fatherhood. I am currently racing a Polaris RZR XP Turbo car in several race series. This season was a test season to try out several series to find what I want to try to compete in for a full championship series next year. If I can pull the funding and support together, I want to race the TORC series next year and win that championship.

K&N: How has your involvement in racing impacted your powersports business?

MQ: We sell parts that are race tested and win races. We specialize in working with race teams to help get their equipment up to race winning level, from the chassis setup to the engine tuning and clutching. The best part of racing myself is that I am usually testing something that if I prove it to work well, we can start to release it to customers. So when someone buys a Queen Racing product or tune, they know it works.

K&N: Tell us a bit about your relationship K&N.

Queen puts his trust in K&N filter technology to protect his high performance builds

K&N: What are your goals and aspirations going forward?

MQ: My future goals are to represent my sponsors to the best of my ability by giving them product feedback and development, and also in marketing. I fully plan to be a championship contender in either the Lucas Oil series or the TORC series next season! I also want to be able to add more championships to the Queen Racing team roster. Currently, I have built and tuned 31 world championship winning machines between jet skis and SxS.

K&N is proud to partner with an innovative powersports company like Queen Racing. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship and continuing to develop the best products for powersports community.

Nicole Behar is in ninth place in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West standings after 11 races.

The next race on the K&N Pro Series West schedule is Meridian Speedway in Idaho. She finished third at Meridian last year and she said she thinks it is a track she can win at.

“We had a good run at Meridian last year,” Behar said. “Hopefully we can do that again this year and come home with a win. Every driver wants to win. I really want to. We’re just trying to go in and win one of these last three.”

Behar has put together a successful season so far. She is ninth in the K&N Pro Series West standings after 11 races. She has two top-five finishes. For a small, family-run team, there have been some high points. She started the season with five top-10 finishes in a row and her team was building confidence.

“We’ve had some really good races,” Behar said. “We have some good races coming up. But we’ve had some down races. Not necessarily the best of luck. We’ve blown a motor. Sonoma, we knew we probably weren’t going to be the best there because we didn’t have a road course car. We bought one a couple weeks beforehand and just tried to get it the best we could.”

The 19-year-old Behar started the season with a 10th-place finish in the season opener at Tucson Speedway in Arizona. She posted her first top-five finish with a fourth-place at the first race at Irwindale Speedway.

“The first couple of races we went down there with all of our cars, be as prepared as we can, put our mindset to do really good in those races,” Behar said. “Those are the ones you want to focus on to start off good.”

Nicole Behar has two top-five and six top-10 finishes in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West.

“That’s a place where you’re either going to finish or you’re going to crash,” Behar said. “I was just hanging out, letting the leaders hit on each other, bang it out. Unfortunately the cars in front of me got tangled. I was almost around it and the 19 car (Derek Kraus) clipped me in the rear and put me in the wall.

“I think we were running like fourth at the time. I think we really had a car to win. Sometimes those things happen and you have to move forward. It really sucks, but you keep going.”

She blew a motor in the race at Colorado National Speedway and finished 17th again. Her team didn’t have a road course for the race at Sonoma Raceway in California, the only road course race on the K&N Pro Series West schedule. Her team bought one a week before the Sonoma race.

She came in 27th in race at Iowa Speedway, a race that pits the teams and drivers from the K&N Pro Series West and East.

“We’ve had some really good races. But we’ve alo had a few bad ones,” Behar said. “With everyone being so close in points, when you have a bad race, you drop pretty fast. Our first goal isn’t to go in and focus on points, it’s just to do the best we can. Where you end up in points, that kind of happens. When you put your mindset to the points, you don’t do really good anyway.”

Nicole Behar finished in third place in the K&N Pro Series West race at Colorado National Speedway.

Being on a small team, Behar said she needs all the help she can get, Having K&N as a sponsor and supporter of the Pro Series West gives her the help she needs.

“They’re always willing to help you, help with filters,” Behar said. “Every little bit helps, especially with a small team it adds up. Without K&N there wouldn’t be a series. Without them, the West Series probably wouldn’t be here. Us drivers wouldn’t be able to race the tracks, race the cars that we do. That means a lot.”