![\"\"](\"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Buckwalter-MS-win-Fri-Nite-300x192.jpg\" "\\"Buckwalter-MS-win-Fri-Nite-300x192\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nTAMPA, FL -2\/18\/11 \u2013 The Winternationals visit to East Bay Raceway Park didn\u2019t get off to a great start for Tim Buckwalter. His season had started strong with Atlantic City, but the trip south went sour when the engine expired during his first heat race.
\nThe fates came full circle on Friday night when Buckwalter put the back-up car in Victory Lane on the second night of the Florida Mini Sprint Association action.
\nBuckwalter took the lead from fellow Pennsylvania racer Jim Young in the first turn on the final lap. Buckwalter had been using the high line for most of his passes. \u201cI knew exactly where he (Young) was and where I could get him,\u201d Buckwalter said in Victory Lane. \u201cI knew I had to keep him down low to get by him.\u201d
\nBuckwalter made the A main in the back-up car on Thursday night, advancing as the runner-up in the B main. This victory on Friday night makes Buckwalter among the favorites for the Saturday night Winter Nationals finale.
\nYoung was able to hold onto second in the 20-lap A main. Thursday night winner Nick Sapp grabbed third to claim the unofficial two-night point lead. Tyler DeVault had a strong showing to claim fourth with 2010 Winter Nationals Mini Sprints champion Luke Thomas in fifth.
\nGavin Thomas started eighth and won the 10-lap B main with Chris Pacetti claiming second and a spot in the A main. Heat races were won by Harold Matthews, David Pleaugh, Buckwalter and DeVault.
\nThe final night of Mini Sprint action comes on Saturday with a $1,000-to-win main event in conjunction with the Ronald Laney Memorial King of the 360s race. Action gets underway at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Larry Jewett TAMPA, FL -2\/18\/11 \u2013 The Winternationals visit to East Bay Raceway Park didn\u2019t get off to a great start for Tim Buckwalter. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3,4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-east-bay-raceway-park","category-front-page-news","category-race-results","category-series"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5135"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5139,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135\/revisions\/5139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}