As the ARCA Menards Series embarks on its third race of the season at the ultimate roulette wheel of a track — Talladega Superspeedway — a different roulette, Ryan Roulette, is preparing to make his third start of the season for the No. 12 Fast Track Racing Enterprises team.
Hopefully, for Roulette and his team, the roulette ball lands on red 12 (Roulette’s No. 12 machine carries a red, and white paint scheme). Roulette carries optimism heading into this weekend’s race as his team is bringing back the same car that featured solid speed at Daytona, the season-opening race.
“Our organization is excited to make the trek down to Alabama for what will no doubt be an awesome weekend of racing at Talladega Superspeedway,” Roulette said. “We had a solid car at Daytona where we ran in the top 15 for most of the night and we plan to bring back that same piece to this race weekend.”
The 38-year-old racer says the plan is for him and his team to continue learning, and work on building themselves into more, and more of a contender.
“This will be our third race this season in the No. 12 VFW Ford and our primary strategy is to continue to build upon our successes so far this season and grow from our mistakes,” Roulette explained. “The team has been hard at work from across the country from pit stop practice, public engagements, preparing the car, time in the gym, mocking each other for our pitiful 5k run times, and in the sim logging laps. Every day we find new ways to continue to grow as a team and we are prepared for this challenge.”
Roulette, who is sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, will have a local member of the VFW as an honorary member of the team this weekend at Talladega. Brian Monk, who is the VFW Post Commander at the Howard F Paddock Post 2214, and was an OIF/OEF veteran, who served in the Alabama Army National Guard as an infantryman.
Like Roulette, Monk has a bit of racing flowing through his veins as well, as he has competed in the famed “24 Hours of Lemons” event in the past.
The ARCA Menards Series General Tire 200 at Talladega Superspeedway is set for Saturday, April 20 at 12:30 PM ET. FS1 will provide live television coverage of the event, and the Motor Racing Network (MRN) will carry the radio broadcast of the race.
