BIRCH RUN, Mich. – Ryan Gillenwater was perhaps one groove and one adjustment away from becoming the second first-time winner of the season with the Must See Racing Sprint Car Series on Sunday at Birch Run Speedway.

However, the Plymouth, Mich., driver didn’t quite have enough steam in the closing stages of the 30-lap feature on Sunday afternoon and fell just short. He started on the pole after a six-car invert and led the first 17 laps, was passed for the win by Brian Gerster with 13 to go and then faded to fourth by the time the twin checkers waved over the field.

Gillenwater said afterwards that if he had more room to make a wing adjustment in the closing laps, he might have been able to get the handling on his car into a position where he could have held Gerster off.

“I knew other guys (behind me) were probably making wing adjustments, and I wanted to make more of one, but I was already back as far as it would move and I was just trying to be patient and not overheat the right rear tire,” explained Gillenwater. “Brian just kept getting better, though, and he didn’t go away. He finally got to the inside of me and after that I just couldn’t keep pace with him. When we had the final caution, I thought we might be in a pretty good spot, but he pulled the old gas-it-up and stand-on-the-brakes maneuver and it bobbled my motor and let (Bobby) Santos get underneath me.

“The car wasn’t bad; it just fell into pace and we salvaged a fourth (place finish) there, but it’s disappointing because for a while, I really thought we had it,” Gillenwater continued. “The car was as good as I could have asked for, pretty much all throughout the race. He was just a little bit better in the end than we were. You know it’s a good day when you’re frustrated with a top-five finish.”

Gillenwater, 35, has been known as somewhat of a daytime specialist during his time with Must See Racing and noted that his car traditionally performs a bit better in hot and slick conditions.

“I always like racing in the daytime; this car has always worked well with us in the sunlight and we typically struggle to get the handle a little bit more when the sun goes down,” said Gillenwater. “I’m not quite sure exactly what it is about a slick race track that suits us, but it’s traditionally been our forte of late. I like this place too; it was fun and it’s a racy place that a lot of us enjoy as drivers.”

Despite the middle groove being where Gerster passed him, Gillenwater never had any plans of moving up the race track himself.

“My car was pretty good downstairs, but my mentality was that if they were going to pass me, they were going to have t do it on the top because I was not giving up the bottom lane,” he noted. “Sometimes it’s hard when you’re leading one of these things, because you don’t see what everyone else is doing and you may feel like you’re running a pretty good pace in one groove, but it’s not the fastest groove on the track. In hindsight, maybe I could have moved up and done something, but I stuck to my guns … so we can’t complain with this at all.”

At the end of the day, the final outcome was bittersweet, but Gillenwater and his family-run race team still left the four-tenths-mile oval with their heads held high.

“The fact that we’re running with some of the guys we’re running with that race a lot more than we do makes us feel really good about where we’re at as a team,” said Gillenwater. “We’re just a small, father-and-son operation run out of a two-car garage, so to be able to mix it up with guys like Gerster, the McCunes and Santos gives us a lot of confidence about our overall program.

“We’re knocking on the door of one of these wins … and hopefully one of these days we’ll finally be able to cash in,” he continued. “It just wasn’t meant to be today.”