Gunn firing on all cylinders at the right time; Hopes to secure title with first-year team in Saturday’s Wayne County Speedway season championship night

Written By: Randy Worrell (Ranger)

ORRVILLE – First-year driver-owner combinations in sprint car racing are at times as unpredictable as the sport itself. Conventional wisdom – with history to back it – says few pay immediate dividends and even fewer survive.

Enter Napolean’s Tyler Gunn and Wooster-based co-owners Sid and Beth Eikelberry and Seneca County’s Jim Sipes.

The trio – which went from virtual strangers and an introductory mid-winter phone call – to one night away from securing their first O’Reilly’s Chase for the Championship in Wayne County Speedway’s Pine Tree Towing and Recovery 410 Sprint Car division – has been the rare exception.

“I didn’t really know Sid and Beth, and it was only after we made this deal that I realized l actually had met Jim once at Attica,” said Gunn. “I always try and shake everyone’s hand that stops by to see us, because you never know what may happen. And it ended up turning into this deal.”

Gunn showed immediate speed early on by displaying an uncanny ability to navigate the treacherous high side around the 3-8-mile oval, despite limited experience at the WCS facility and recorded a pair of early wins.

A mid-summer series of events, however, which included a rain drenched Speedweek race, a nearly three weeks break in the schedule, and a couple of torn up race cars set the JRayl Trucking-sponsored 91 back a notch.

“At the end of last year, mechanic Zach Holloway came off the road with a touring team and we ended up teaming up together,” added Gunn. “So, when we started talking this winter about (the 91) deal, I didn’t want to do it without Zach involved. After our first race together, we knew it wasn’t going to be any problem at all in getting everyone on the same page. We all clicked right away.”

The “Machine Gunn” saw his point lead shrink in the middle of the summer as former track champion Danny Mumaw returned to his previous form and rattled off a pair of wins, and Tyler Street, who is always on the gas at the ultra-fast 3-8-mile, also recovered from a stretch of bad luck as well with Mumaw actually taking command of the points lead following his second win just a weeks back.

Gunn returned to his winning ways last week, however, with his third victory of the season and holds a slim margin over Mumaw (453-438), with Street just six back of Mumaw with 432 heading into Saturday’s double-points championship night.

“I’m not sure what, if any, strategy we will have other than just keeping pace somewhere in the pack with Danny and Tyler close by,” said Gunn. “We tore up a few cars earlier, but Zach really has a handle on our RPM-chassis cars, and we feel like we are comfortable and firing on all cylinders again.

“We flipped a few weeks back while running third, and l know l can’t do anything stupid like that on Saturday, but who wants to finish second or third? We started the season with a goal of winning the championship, and we are in a position to do that, but we also want to win. We’ll just do our best and see where we are at the end of the night.”

Saturday’s Season Championship night presented by Southeastern Equipment begins with warm-ups at 6 p.m. and racing at 7:15.