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Now 18-year-old Keeton Hanks has nothing to fear about Iowa Speedway.
By: Allen-Hock Motorsports/Jeremy Troiano-51 Sports

 

Auburn, Kentucky (05/29/2007): Heading to a larger-sized speedway can be a scary experience for a young racecar driver. Things happen in double-time, the speeds are great and there is trouble around every corner.

But Keeton Hanks isn’t your typical young driver. The talented competitor celebrated his 18th birthday by bringing his Allen-Hock Motorsports entry home fifth in the ASA Late Model Series Challenge Division event on May 19, 2007 at the 7/8th-mile Iowa Speedway.

“It was a pretty solid weekend for our team,” said Hanks. “At Iowa, I was a little nervous going into it just because of the fact that it is a new track; it’s intimidating. You hear other drivers talk about how fast it is.”

“It turns out that it wasn’t bad at all; it was a good learning weekend. We accomplished a lot by getting a top-five finish for sure. I think we should have been a little bit better, but we had some late-race handling issues that probably cost us a couple of spots. But it wasn’t a bad day at all.”

Hanks immediately took a liking to the big track. “The track was great. I would feel a lot more confident going back to it now. Friday was pretty rough for me until I was actually out there on the track getting some time out there. Then it was kind of like ‘wow this wasn’t so bad."

"I got a lot more experience with racing on a bigger and faster track and passing cars when you go that quickly. It was a good weekend. “We really struggled at the first part of the race. We came in at the break and got it better and better. We just didn’t get that extra that we would have needed… that couple of cars in front of us. I really think that we finished where the car could get to. We can’t be mad about that.”

Of course any competitor wants to be the best. So while Hanks is happy with his finish, he isn’t exactly satisfied by it either. Instead, he looks towards the podium and knows that he could have possibly finished right up there with race winner Jacob Goede and runner-up Travis Dassow.

“I don’t know if we would have had anything for Goede or Dassow,” said Hanks. “I definitely think that we would have had a couple of positions that we gave up during the race there at the end, but I don’t know if we would have been able to get the win.”

And winning is number one on Hanks’ to-do list. “We are just fighting for a win, and we are hungry for one. We are not happy with anything but winning right now.” Hanks and the Allen-Hock team were also able to gain valuable points with their top-five finish as they chase championship leader Travis Dassow for the title.

“We are definitely going for the championship, and we are having some good weeks here,” said Hanks. “We just have to keep having them. Those top-fives are going to add up in the long run; it’s just going to be hard to beat that 89 car, who already has two wins.”

The ASA Late Model Series Challenge Division returns to action on June 16th at Berlin (MI) Raceway. For more information on Allen-Hock Motorsports, contact Jeremy Troiano at (704) 788-2134 and be sure to check out the new Allen-Hock website coming soon.