On Saturday night at Kawartha Speedway, D.J. Kennington made his way to the front during the second half of the race to complete the season with a third place finish.
Kennington started the Pinty’s 250 up front, though was forced down pit road at lap 40 to repair a damaged front end after contact while battling for a spot in the top-five. Restarting at the back of the field, Kennington would make his way back to the front, returning to the top-five with 80 laps left. He would then move up two more spots before the checkered flag on a late-race restart, finishing third.
“It started off rough, getting the front end smashed a little bit,” Kennington commented post-race. “By the end of the night, we had the car pretty good and got a good solid finish. It was a good night for our sponsors – Castrol and Mahindra. We’ll take it and run with it.”
For Kennington, it marks his sixth top-five and eighth top-10 in the 11 races this season, resulting in the driver of the No. 17 Castrol Edge/Mahindra Tractors Dodge finishing fifth in the season-ending standings.
“We had an up and down year,” he commented. “One of those years that some things went right and some things didn’t. Hope we can have a better year next year and we’ll see how it goes.”
Notably, the two-time series champion has failed to reach victory lane over the past two seasons, despite posting 11 top-five finishes. Kennington feels his team needs to get the chassis a little better going into next season to be stronger.
“I think we need to get the handling better in the car and hopefully that’ll equate to a couple more wins,” he added.
