Three of KKM’s six Indiana Midget Week drivers were at the shop Tuesday aiding in the maintenance process. Crouch, Wiedeman and Daison Pursley all took time to aid their road crew members in preparing race cars for the second half of the Hoosier State mini-series.
Kofoid and Kaylee Bryson were off-site tending to other racing-related obligations, while Jonathan Shafer will join the team Wednesday at Circle City Raceway as he begins his part-time Indiana Midget Week campaign with the team.
The three drivers at the shop were each appreciative of the opportunity to decompress and refocus their energies ahead of another busy week of midget racing.
“I’m not going to lie, eight days straight would probably take a toll on everybody, so I think it’s good that they have it broken up like this,” said Crouch. “We get the break, we get to completely maintenance the cars and everything that goes with them. I think it’s definitely good for us drivers to get some down time, even though we don’t get a whole lot of that … it’s more not as much going and going and a chance to reset for the next four days and get back after it with a clear mindset.”
In Wiedeman’s case, the 15-year-old from Colby, Kan., was grateful for the opportunity to continue recharging after his violent flip at Lawrenceburg.
Sporting eyes that were still somewhat bloodshot after the wild ride, Wiedeman said he was “feeling better than he had in a few days” and would be ready to go for Wednesday’s Circle City round.
“I’m pretty grateful for these couple of days off. When you have a crash like that, even for us young guys, your body wants that time to recover,” Wiedeman explained. “Even the day after [the flip], when we were at Haubstadt, I was limping it across the finish line a little bit. Now that I’m feeling back to where I want to be, I’m just hoping we can get the next four days in without any trouble from the rain, because I’m feeling pretty confident about the upcoming days for this team.”
Pursley was the busiest of the three drivers Tuesday, scurrying around the shop floor as he washed and greased gears and other components for Binder, Martin and assistant crew chief Grant Penn to reinstall.
The 16-year-old noted that he wanted to put in what effort he could to help boost team morale, as well as thank the shop crew for the work and hours they put in to get the KKM drivers to the race track.
“I joke that I kind of got roped into it, but the crew guys do a lot of work for us, so I try to return the favor and just do some of the little things that take a lot of time that they don’t need to have to worry about or stress over,” Pursley said.
“I can easily come up here and do some of that for them to make their jobs a little bit easier in return for us.”
Now in his third year with KKM, Pursley explained that “there are a few less late nights” this year compared to his 2020 Indiana Midget Week experience — the first year he was eligible to run with USAC.
“The last two years I’ve been part of KKM, they’ve come back and washed [cars] every single night and stayed up ‘til about 4 a.m., and then everyone would get up at 7 [a.m.] and finish maintenance before we headed to the track,” Pursley recalled. “It’s definitely a little different, but it lets us reflect on the weekend and then reset to try and either conquer the Indiana Midget Week points or just pick up a win.”
For the crew members, a little extra sleep has been beneficial to the goal of chasing an Indiana Midget Week championship. However, as Martin noted, some parts of the process always stay the same.
“We haven’t been working through the night like we did in midget week’s past; we’re just down a few guys right now,” Martin said. “Beau was working on stuff at night in the past and now he’s out at the race track crew chiefing for us. So it’s hard to get stuff done in some respects, but it’s nice to have a little break to get things done and cleaned up.
“Other than that, it’s just like a normal weekend for us. It’s just four days in a row, doing it twice over.”