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Ryan Bunton: Cinderella Wears Camo

Ryan Bunton: Cinderella Wears Camo
Ryan Bunton
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
(Eric Arnold) The Knoxville Nationals seems to have a story every year of an underdog team that makes the A-Main that no one expected and this year was no different. Knoxville Championship Cup driver Ryan Bunton of Morton, IL had never made it to the Nationals B-Main before, but the weekend racer and owner of the family body shop during the week locked his car in the Saturday A-Main in 2014.

Bunton’s story is similar to other low budget teams, one car, one engine, and all of their eggs in one basket you could say. The odds were against them in the weeks leading up to the Nationals. A week before the Nationals they didn’t think they would be there. Bunton and his team raced the IRA show at Beaver Dam in July and the engine let go after qualifying. He sent his engine off to Pennsylvania to Tom Rider to get rebuilt, but with the Knoxville season hitting its peak, and only three weeks prior to the Nationals he would miss out on valuable points at Knoxville for two weeks and keep his fingers crossed that they had their engine back for the Nationals.

In what Bunton called “a miracle” his engine builder Tom Rider was able to have the engine repaired in the days before the Nationals. His parents left Illinois to make the twelve hour drive to Rider’s shop in Mechanicsburg and picked up the engine on Monday afternoon and returned back to Illinois to get the engine bolted in the car on Wednesday in time to head for Knoxville.

On his Thursday qualifying night Bunton timed eleventh on the same tires he had mounted on the car at Beaver Dam. He started sixth in his heat and he had driven up to third, but with one lap to go he lost a cylinder and was able to hang on to fourth place and a transfer spot into the Thursday A-Main. With their primary engine out, they scrambled to put in their 15 year old backup engine. He started fourth and was running in the top ten most of the race until one of his fuel lines came off, dumping about 5 gallons of methanol in his lap. Bunton was forced to be conservative to make it to the end of the 25 lap race and was able to hang on to finish 15th. For all of the bad luck they had to overcome, the 6R team earned a total of 443 points, 16th overall, and was locked into the Saturday night A-Main.

Now with their good engine down a cylinder and only left with their tired backup for the Saturday A-Main, Tom Rider sent them a package over night with the parts they needed to repair a rocker arm. Unfortunately their motor was badly damaged the last lap or two at the end of the Thursday heat race in order to make their transfer spot. On Saturday afternoon the parts were delivered and it was a mad dash in the parking lot to get the repairs made.

On Saturday night Bunton started 16th and raced his way to 11th in the first three laps, but unfortunately they lost the cylinder once again and limped to the halfway stop on lap 25 before calling it a night. As thankful as his team was to qualify for the A-Main, they still look back at how much better they could have done if they would have had some better luck and that extra 150 horsepower under the hood.

One underappreciated experience by some people that Bunton loved to be a part of was the A-Main drivers meeting on Saturday afternoon. There he is sitting in the same room with Schatz, Swindell, Pittman, Saldana, distinguished media members such as Dave Despain and Brad Doty. He was lucky enough to sit at the same table as Mark Dobmeier a familiar face, and then Schatz.

The best part of the Nationals for Bunton is that he was able to honor and give something back to our military families and veterans with his special paint scheme. All season Bunton had been inviting veterans to the pit area to sign his car somewhere. Some people signed the car in honor of a fallen hero who made the ultimate sacrifice. And on Saturday night he was able to carry those names with him, and some of those people had tears in their eyes on the parade lap Saturday night.

Racing has its ups and downs. You have to be thankful for the accomplishment of making the biggest sprint car race in the world, but having to think of the what if’s afterwards grinds at your mind as well. Bunton is a 30 year old rising star at Knoxville and making the Knoxville Nationals A-Main will give him added confidence. He should have another crack at it in the years to come.

This story previously appeared in FlatOut Magazine. To find out more about FlatOut Magazine please visit www.threewidemedia.com.