BRUISCHART CLOSES WITH A FLOURISH IN LANE SERIES
12 Round Wins on Final Weekend Fuel Best Ever No. 2 Finish in Modified
Allegan’s Al Bruischart never planned to be a drag racer. When he bought a 1973 Plymouth Duster 27 years ago, “it was something I could afford at the time. My son was young then and it was a good project we could work on together,” he said.
But you know what happens. One day, he just wanted to see how fast his little 340 really was. So he took it to US 131 Motorsports Park. He’s been racing it ever since. Saturday night, he raced the yellow-and-black Duster to the very brink of a Modified track championship by winning 12 rounds in two days with wife Deb, who never saw herself as a crew chief, looking on in delight.
As a result, Bruischart is Gary Hunt’s final Racer of the Week for 2017.
On average, he was .01 off his dial all weekend long and was dead-on six times. He was one of the last six in a 90-car field on Saturday and was the last man standing on Sunday. That propelled him to second place, improving on his fourth-place finish in 2012.
Not bad for a guy who crashed the same car so badly at the 2011 Bracket Finals that he had to commission Matt Tomlinson to replace everything from the firewall forward with parts from a donor Duster.
Congratulations, Al and Deb, from Gary Hunt and everyone else at US 131 Motorsports Park.
ABOUT GARY HUNT
Gary Hunt is in his tenth season as the track announcer at US 131 Motorsports Park, a track on which he used to race in the brackets and Stock Eliminator. His experience as a race car driver (he won seven points championships) has served him well behind the mike and while he often misses the thrill of competition, his “desk job” is not without its benefits. “It’s given me the best seat in the house, which is always climate controlled,” he said. “I never break any parts, don’t have to wait in line and I leave with a little bit of money every week.”
