May 01 2008 - Team Merlin – Route 66 Sprint Series – CHMS Race Report The Route 66 Sprint Series is rapidly becoming one of the premier regional series, and with this past weekend’s turnout at the Concept Haulers Motor Speedway nearing 200 entries, the competition level was better than ever. Several Team Merlin competitors converged on the high speed 7/10 mile sprint track to fly the team banner. Qualifying took place late Saturday afternoon, with racing following on Sunday. Kyle Kalish set the bar high by kicking things off with a pole qualifying effort in HPV Jr. Sportsman. Kalish followed up the qualifying effort with the prefinal win. Fellow Merlin driver Josh Hotz was looking for a little speed after qualifying, but made some progress in the prefinal to put himself in good position for the final. Kalish won a hard fought battle and held off a last lap pass attempt by Colin Griffin with a gutsy move coming off the large oval that secured the win for the young Illinois pilot. Hotz worked to improve himself all day and secured a top five finish when the checkers fell. Tag Senior entry, Cody Elliot had an uphill battle all day with his Rotax powered Merlin. CHMS is not a Rotax friendly track, but Elliot’s driving skill and chassis tuning kept him in the hunt all day, with the end result being a third place finish in the highly competitive class. Yamaha Jr. Sportsman had a full field of 25 entries, but when qualifying was completed, Kyle Kalish and Josh Hotz had both posted excellent laps, timing in 3rd and 4th, respectively. The prefinal start was not good and the outside polesitter ended up spinning, putting Kalish off the track, although Hotz carried on. Hotz battled Jordan Laukaitis for the lead and eventually settled for second in the prefinal, while Kalish was able to work his way back up to 11th. Up front in the final, it was Hotz and Laukaitis, joined by Cody Dyer. These three sliced and diced, swapping the lead several times. Unfortunately for Hotz, side by side racing with Laukaitis sent Jordan over the top of him and led to both of them spinning out. Hotz would continue on, but his hopes of winning were gone and he ultimately had to settle for 7th, and Kalish was only able to work back up to 6th in heavy traffic. Merlin’s other entry came by way of TJ Koyen in Supercan Lite. TJ set the tone in practice on Saturday by outpacing his competitors all day and capped it off with a pole time of 49.442, which was .898 sec. faster than the second place qualifier. TJ’s Switch powered MR29 showed no mercy on Sunday and dominated the prefinal and final, winning by over 9 seconds. Click Here to Read More News