Linny White (foreground) had his hands full racing with Derek Thorn (middle) and Dylan Lupton (background). The trio duked it out during the early part of the 100-lap Spears SRL Southwest Tour Series feature at Irwindale Speedway in California. The final 85 laps of the race ran caution-free, and run under the scorching afternoon sun.
Thorn faded back to sixth in the beginning laps of the race, but then stormed to the front at the finish. He entered the race looking for his fifth consecutive SRL win (see “Derek Thorn: On a Tear in the SRL”). The all-time winningest SRL driver and four-time series champion has five SRL wins at Irwindale.
“We practiced to have our car come in [to its best performance] when our fuel was low,” said Thorn, 34, originally of Lakeport, California. “It did [come in], but we didn’t expect White to have a three-second lead. All we needed was a caution to catch him.”
White knows his way around Irwindale as a former track champion in super late models. He felt the long run under the sun suited his approach to long-distance races.
“The kids always drive real hard,” White, 42, of Fontana, California, said. “The problem is that they run the tires off the car or wear their brakes out.”
Patience paid off for White.
“I like to feel my car out early in the race,” said White. “A lot of drivers fire off earlier than I do. I see myself as a finisher. I search for what my car likes about halfway through the feature, and go for it.”
Go for it, he did. Linny White won his third SRL race, and his first SRL feature at Irwindale. Thorn’s winning streak ended at four, and finished second. Lupton, of Wilton, California, crossed the line in third.
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
