Reinhardt Races Through Field To Earn Top-5 Finish & Hard Charger Award At BAPS Sunday
News Director 
Story By: RICH WATTS / KYLE REINHARDT RACING – YORK HAVEN, PA – It’s still early in the 2023 season but after three races, Kyle Reinhardt arrived at BAPS Motor Speedway Sunday afternoon focused on continuing to move his new program forward.
The Capitol Renegade team has been making progress. They demonstrated it last week by making the World of Outlaws show at Lincoln Speedway through their heat. Today was their chance to show it was a trend.
There’s one part of Reinhardt’s day he can never control: the pill draw. As often seems to be the case, the number he pulled wasn’t exactly ideal. With only the top five finishers transferring from each of four heats on a slick, daytime surface, the Neptune City, NJ native would have to roll to the green from the 7th starting spot.
Reinhardt managed to get what he needed out of the Capitol Renegade, Capitol Custom Coaches & Trailers, Henry’s Wrecker No.91, grabbing the 5th and final transfer spot to put himself into the main event. It would be tough to start that deep in the field on the hard, slick daytime surface but he was in.
Reinhardt started 19th in the A-main, prepared to just survive if necessary. He quickly found something though and by lap two he was 15th.
Reinhardt’s Maxim continued to perform as he balanced progress with tire conservation. By lap five he had cracked the top ten.
With 25 laps complete, a caution turned into a red flag for a brief fuel stop. Due to conditions, officials decided to end the race three laps short of the scheduled distance.
When green flag racing resumed, Reinhardt was 4th with two laps remaining. In the final turns he slipped back one spot, but still managed to survive and bring home a top five finish, earning the Hard Charger Award in the progress for his +14 effort.
“The car was really good today. During that last red I had a chance to look at my tires. I knew I didn’t have much left, so I was just trying to get it to the end. I just wanted to finish.“, a relieved Reinhardt said after the race.
“I knew I had to try something to move forward, so I gave the top a shot early and was surprised how well it worked. I stayed with it as long as I could. Trying to pass cars and save tires at the same time is a tough deal.”
“It was a good day. We’re going the right direction.“, Reinhardt concluded.
Next up for Reinhardt and the Capitol Renegade team will be a trip to his home state of New Jersey for the ‘Invasion of the Posse’ 410 sprint car event at Bridgeport Motorsports Park on Sunday, April 2nd. Cars will hit the track for hot laps at 4pm.
