Kyle Fowler

Kyle Fowler and the team of his #51F Chevy went into the Snowflake 100 weekend at Pensacola, Florida’s Five Flags Speedway with guns blazing, hoping to put on a show in the toughest Pro Late Model event in the country. Fowler started from the 30th position after having a hard time getting all the speed out of the car in his qualifying effort, but from the drop of the green flag in the 100-lap event, Fowler was digging towards the front.

Just as Fowler was hitting his stride and marching towards the lead pack, a group of cars tangled in front of him, leaving him nowhere to go but into the melee. Fowler’s machine suffered heavy damage, but his night was far from over at that point.

“We got involved in an incident pretty early in the race and made it through that with a little bit of damage,” said Fowler. “We came in the pits and had a great pit crew. If we wouldn’t have had them we would have been done right there. They worked like crazy during the caution and got us back out there.”

Once repairs were made to Fowler’s car, he started coming back through the field once again. But, just as earlier in the race, impatience on the part of other racers around him eventually did him in, forcing him to a disappointing 24th-place finish.

“The car was driving about the same before the incident and we made our way through the field. I thought we were in position to get a top-five, top-ten finish. Everyone short pitted on us and we weren’t expecting that, but we were planning on running a little bit longer on our tires. So we stayed out on that and everyone else had fresh rubber behind us and we kind of got hung out to dry and they wrecked in front of us. The guy below me side slapped and sent me into the guy on the outside.”

“But, we would have been done on that first race if Mr. Dillner (Bob Dillner, team owner of BDI Racing, the crew that was pitting Fowler’s car in the Snowflake 100) and his crew hadn’t of been there helping us. I hate we didn’t get a chance to make our pit stop because I’m sure it would have been fast and we would of have a great shot at it, but it just wasn’t our night.”

The Snowflake 100 ended Fowler’s 2008 season. Stay tuned to KyleFowler.net for updates throughout the winter regarding Kyle’s 2009 season.