As Tyler Burton spun his non-wing sprint during his heat race, he tried to keep oriented. Unfortunately, he wound up tagging the wall at Valley Speedway in Grain Valley, Missouri.
“The track went dry-slick early — and that was a challenge in itself, especially with all the motor we have in my car,” Burton, 29, of Independence, Missouri, said. “I hit the throttle hard to get away from the wall, but with all that dust, hitting the throttle actually turned me into the wall.”
Burton is a veteran of open wheel classes. He has raced 600 sprints and 360 sprints. Last Saturday was his first time out in a 410.
“I spun out on a dry-slick surface once before, but I was low on the track and was able to do a 360 and keep on racing,” said Burton. “This time I wasn’t so lucky. I was higher on the track and there was a lot more power for me to control.”
Fortunately, the damage was minor and Burton was not injured. The incident broke a radius rod and a tie rod, pulled the torque tube from the rear end, and bent the Jacob’s ladder and Pitman arm. Burton said it’ll cost him roughly $250 in parts to fix.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Burton said. “The car is all apart and we are waiting on parts.”
Tyler Burton plans to race 410 sprint cars at a trio of Missouri tracks — Bethany Fairgrounds Speedway, I-35 Speedway in Winston, and US 36 Raceway in Osborn — as well at Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas.
“I don’t have enough seat time in the 410 to compare it to the 360 sprint car, yet,” said Burton. “Because this was my first race in the 410, I think I went into the turn too quickly. We’re hoping to get a couple of races in every week this season. With enough laps, I will get the 410 figured it out.”
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.
