PORT ROYAL, Pa. — A.J. Flick strolled through Port Royal Speedway’s pits on Thursday trying to digest the night.
Flick started he Tuscarora 50 opener from the pole and led the first seven laps. But he couldn’t hang on and finished fifth. It’s his best finish with the All Star Circuit of Champions, but it came at the expense of a lifelong dream of winning a touring sprint car race.
Lynton Jeffrey grabbed Flick’s shoulder as he walked by, slapped him on the back and offered encouragement.
“When you’re at, like, Jackson (Minn.) Motorplex racing against the World of Outlaws, you got to expect that,” Jeffrey said of the intensity racing for wins on big stages like Thursday
“The thing is, I’ll never be at Jackson racing with the World of Outlaws,” Flick said through a laugh.
“I just want you to know you can’t get upset,” Jeffrey said.
Flick, a part-time driver with his frugal family team out of Apollo, Pa., took Jeffrey’s words to heart and continued the walk back to his trailer. There, he finally started to process the growing pains.
“This is the first time in my career of sprint car driving I’ve been in the position to win a race of this magnitude, on a track this fast, this big, against cars this fast, with drivers this aggressive,” Flick said. “On a scale from one to 10, it was a 50 of how everything changed. I drove differently today than I ever had before just because it’s how the race needed me to drive it.”
Flick started the 30-lap feature with good pace, mounting a two-second lead four laps in.
Everything changed when he caught the tail of the field. His pace substantially slowed. It was uncharted territory, the challenges of navigating lapped traffic.
Bill Balog and Brent Marks trounced Flick, who spiraled to fifth in a matter of laps.
“I don’t think I left anything out on the table there,” Flick said. “I think I drove the best I could for as many laps as I could. I don’t even want to say the car was bad. I just got beat by some drivers with a lot more experience.”
Money is tight for Flick. He can’t race as much as he’d like and stays within his means. His four wins this year are at Western Pennsylvania tracks Tri-City Speedway in Franklin and Thunder Mountain in Brookville.
He has two wins in Central PA, both at Port Royal. The first came at the 2018 Juniata County Fair opener that September. The biggest win of his career, the $12,000-to-win Dream race in Aug. 2019, was the second.
Despite his dreams being dashed, Flick has something to build on for the next two nights.
“I told my guys, I would have been overjoyed to just hang on to 10th,” Flick said. “We would love to duplicate these results.”