Broken Axle Ruins Top-10 Run for Hawkins at Michigan

Matt Hawkins has turned plenty of heads in his limited starts in the ARCA RE/MAX Series so far in 2008.  At Michigan, all those impressive stats and strong runs gave the young driver plenty of high hopes for the Racing for Wildlife 200 at MIS on June 14th.

But the racing luck wasn't on the youngster's side this time around, however.  Hawkins started 12th and was running strong inside the top-10 when a broken axle sidelined him to a 29th-place finish.

"We pretty much ran around eighth or ninth the whole race," said Hawkins.  "We were running seventh out there when it broke.  I think the #01 car had to pit for gas, so we probably would've finished about fifth or sixth.

"We were just decent.  We never even got the car freed up enough to go for the win."

But, as always, Hawkins is looking out the windshield for his next race, which comes on Saturday, June 21st at Myrtle Beach Speedway (SC).

"We ran decent there, i think about seventh last time we were there.  Mike ran about fourth or fifth, so I think we can go back there and have a pretty good shot at it."

Hawkins' pit crew goes to work on the Jani-King #39.