By: Ashley McCubbin

Running up front at Talladega Superspeedway, Greg Van Alst caught the attention of the ARCA Menards Series fanbase, especially hearing the tale how it’s just him and a couple guys putting together his effort.

Unfortunately, his strong run up through the pack was ended by a ill-timed bump from Nick Sanchez in the tri-oval, resulting in the No. 35 crashing out of the General Tire 200.

“The thing is Daytona and Talladega are so different in the way you need to time things with the bump draft,” Van Alst explained. “I learned that I had to time my moves in order to keep from running in the back of the guys in the corners and tri-oval, and I think what happened was just we got towards the end, and Sanchez was being aggressive – which was fine; he just didn’t get his move timed right.

“I mean, if we would’ve been a couple feet down the race track, we probably would’ve been having a different conversation because his hit would’ve probably propelled me to the lead.”

Fortunately, Van Alst will get another chance to prove himself behind the wheel as he is one of the competitors entered in the Dutch Boy 150 at Kansas Speedway on Saturday.

“Going to a mile-and-a-half, I haven’t done of those in awhile,” he said. “So I’ll probably have to be patient at the beginning to get to the end, give a little more than I take, and this weekend is probably going to be more about finishing than anything.”

The trip to the Sunflower state is part of the six races which he is confident his race team will be able to run this season.

“We’re kind of race-to-race because we only have one intermediate car; we have a speedway car and then an intermediate car,” he commented. “Like I said, six races – we might throw a few on there, just depending on how sponsorship comes in and how my business does.”

Discussions have already began towards the future, with Van Alst saying early conversations with sponsors have led to a possible expansion on his slated amount of events for 2022. If they were able to expand to the full schedule, that’d be something he would love to do.

“I’ll be honest with you – financially I can’t do it out of my pocket, so if we can find somebody that can come on-board and partner with up with us for a full schedule, we’d defiantly entertain it as we’re ready,” he told NEWS FROM THE PITS. “At the end of the day, if we’re racing every weekend, that’s what we want to be doing.”

As for what track he dreams of on the schedule? Simple – Bristol Motor Speedway.

“We raced in the super there last fall and came up just short of winning that race,” he said. “I feel like that’ll be one that my experience there in the super will help.

“I was really looking forward to my first trip to Daytona, but now that it’s behind us, Bristol is the one we have circled on calendar.”