Dylan Kwasniewski Wins 2013 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East Championship
- Nov 15, 2013
"I knew my dad would have wanted me to do it," Kwasniewski said. "He was the one who started it. He told somebody that my son is going to become a NASCAR champion one day. Now I can say I am a back-to-back champion." Dylan Kwasniewski and Brett Moffitt entered the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East season finale at Road Atlanta in Georgia separated by five points in the championship standings.
Kwasniewski won six races in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, the most since Brad Leighton won six races in 1999. Ricky Craven holds the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East record with 10 wins in one season in 1991. It was the first K&N Pro Series East championship for Turner Scott Motorsports, which made its debut in the series in 2013.
Kwasniewski easily won the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship when Moffitt fell out of contention with a transmission problem on lap 6. Moffitt finished a distant 24th and Kwasniewski won the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship by 33 points. Kwasniewski had two poor finishes in the previous two races. He was 24th at the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and was 29th at the race at Dover International Speedway in Delaware.
Those two races allowed Moffitt to close the gap on Kwasniewski in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East standings.
"It just shows that he never quits," said Mardy Lindley, Dylan Kwasniewski's crew chief. "We never gave up. It was just a great day today. It just showed how our season went. In the beginning it was up and down. When it was up, it was really up." Moffitt moved within striking distance of Kwasniewski for the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship in the last race of the season. But Moffitt's car conked out early in the race leaving little drama in the championship race.
"We were coming into this last race with two horrible races," Kwasniewski said. "It could have been either way. We bounced back. We knew that we had the championship locked in. We knew that we had the car to beat." The 18-year-old Kwasniewski is the third youngest driver to win the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship. Joey Logano and Ryan Truex won the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East title when they were 17. "I went into this race, just like the last race at Phoenix, knowing that I was the one to beat at this race," Kwasniewski said. "I was the one that they were going to be chasing. I just had to have that mentality, it's not a cocky mentality, it's just a confident one that you know you can go out there and win every single weekend. That's what I did." Qualifying for the Road Atlanta 115 was rained out. The starting grid was set by championship points. Kwasniewski started on the pole alongside Moffitt. Dylan Kwasniewski led every lap of the race. Daniel Suarez was second, with Bryan Ortiz in third. |
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