Salem, IN (October 19, 2017) – Austin Kunert just wrapped up his third season of competition with the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour Presented by Chevrolet Performance, finishing third in the final season standings after the Championship Chase event at Winchester Speedway on Friday, October 6th. Kunert had an up and down season, with several good runs and some bad luck that kept him from being at the top of the points, but he and his Lorz Motorsports Team never gave up and continued to battle all the way through the last event of the season.
For their hard work and never give up attitude, the Lorz Motorsports team has been named the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour 2017 Pitboxes.com Pit Crew of the Year Award winners. The team led by Mike Lorz gave 100% each week and more, to keep Kunert competitive at each series event and went way above to win the Pitboxes.com Pit Crew of the Race Award twice during the 2017 season, the most of any team in the series.
The team got its first Pitboxes.com Pit Crew of the Race Award at the Birch Run Speedway event on August 18th, were the Lorz Motorsports team gave Kunert a great car, he led the first 42 laps before being passed by eventual winner Carson Hocevar, but got a season high third place finish. In the season Championship event at Winchester, Kunert got caught up in a lap 72 incident that severely damaged his car, which seemed to end any thoughts of winning the 2017 Championship, but suddenly under that yellow the front stretch lights went out causing a red flag, the the team went to work making repairs to get Kunert back on the track during the long red flag. Kunert got back out with the damaged car and would finish the race, showing the teams never give up attitude and giving Kunert a third place finish in points and their second Pitboxes.com Pit Crew of the Race Award.
The team also showed its resilience after the Labor Day Weekend Winchester Speedway event, were Kunert hit the wall hard in turn one ending his day, the teams only DNF of the season. The team took the car back to their shop and had it fixed and ready to race again in less than a week at the Owosso Speedway event.
“We really appreciate the recognition for our crew in receiving the 2017 Pitboxes.com Pit Crew of the Year,” remarked Mike Lorz. “The guy’s back at the shop will be proud of this award, without their help we would not have received this award. Thanks for all the hard work from the guys back at the shop and at the track. Our crew included Bob Lorz, John Hollendonner, Josh Nelms, Michael Kunert, Lloyd Doogan and Greg Drabandt. I can’t forget to say thanks to our families for supporting us through a long racing season and thank you to PitBoxes.com for supporting the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour with this great award.”
“We were excited and proud to hear our crew has been selected as the winner of the PitBoxes.com Pit Crew of the Year Award for the 2017 season, “ remarked Mike Kunert, Austin Kunert’s father. “The team’s hard work week in and week out was able to give Austin a competitive car each race and have a shot at the Championship. The last couple years the team has really worked well together and was able to finish 2nd and 3rd in the series Championship points, which is a great team effort. Austin and I Would like to thank everyone that makes this happen”
“We had a great year this year and learned a lot from last year which we brought into 2017 and built on it,” remarked Austin Kunert. “We had a lot of fun together, we were always competitive and a threat to other teams, but none of the accomplishments would have been possible without the crew. I would also like to thank CRA for having a great series and putting on races at all the awesome tracks throughout the year. We look forward to bringing the crew back in 2018 as we move up to the ARCA/CRA Super Series.”
For earning the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour 2017 Pitboxes.com Pit Crew of the Year, Lorz Motorsports will receive a $1,000 Product Certificate from Pitboxes.com at the 2017 CRA Awards Banquet, which will be held at the Crowne Plaza Indianapolis at Union Station on Friday, January 5th.
“We really appreciate Ricky Sanders at PitBoxes.com for coming up with this great award,” remarked Glenn Luckett, Managing Partner with CRA. “Ricky wanted to create an award that recognized the people behind the drivers in our series. The drivers get recognition at each race, but with the Pitboxes.com Pit Crew Awards for each series event and the season, a lot of the hard working crew members for the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour teams get recognized also.”
Luckett added, “The Lorz Motorsports team worked hard to get their cars to the track and prepared for each race, but they also had a never give up attitude, no matter what happened to their cars in a race, they would work their butts off to get their cars better or to just get them back on the track to complete laps. We appreciate all their efforts this season!”
Teams earning a Pitboxes.com Pit Crew of the Race Award during the 2017 JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour season include: #29 Austin Kunert, #46 Cole Williams, #51 Joe Cooksey, #811 Thomas Hufferd, #71 Johnny VanDoorn, #20 Jack Dossey III, #14 Carson Hocevar, #7 Kyle Crump, #72 Thomas Woodin and #26 Travis Braden. Each of those teams received a $200 Product Certificate from Pitboxes.com.
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Additional information on all the CRA Series is available at www.cra-racing.com.
