SARVER, Pa. — There was no animosity between Tyler Courtney and James McFadden following their on-track incident during Tuesday night’s Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup at Lernerville Speedway.
The pair collided exiting turn four while battling for the lead, knocking both from contention for the victory and handing the top prize to Rico Abreu.
McFadden got a run on Courtney entering turn three and the pair tangled in turn four.
“It’s just racing,” Courtney said. “We are both going for the win. We don’t come to these races to just ride around and hang out. I slipped up off of two and he got a good. I don’t if I got all the way back to where he knew I was there. We’ve raced each other a lot and we don’t really get into each other like that. I haven’t talked to him yet.
“It sucks. It really does, but ultimately, it’s racing. We just had to salvage the night and do the best we could. We only had 14 laps or so left there at the end and I was able to get back to 10th.
“We have to move on. You can’t hang on to that stuff too long, especially when you have some big races coming up,” Courtney explained. “We are going to Knoxville this weekend to maybe run both cars in the 360 and the 410 to tune up for the Nationals coming up. We’ll run the 360 Nationals and then be fully prepared for the 410 Nationals.”
McFadden also took the incident in stride.
“I’d like to watch it back on the replay. I had a really big run off of two and I felt like I was next to him halfway down the straight, bombed the entry to three and slid up slowly,” he explained. “Honestly, I didn’t know he was there and I didn’t hear him. I’ll have to look back at the video, I thought I was way clear because I was next to him on the straightaway, but obviously I wasn’t. I apologize to those guys and, obviously, to my team if it was all on me.
“It sucks man. We were really fast. Got past Corey Day several times and the yellows would come out and we were able to get back by him and then had that run on Sunshine.”
Like Courtney, McFadden is looking ahead.
“The month of money is the best time in sprint car racing in the world,” he said. “I am excited. My car is really good. My guys are working their butts off. I just need to finish it off.”