Harrison Burton and the No. 21 Menards/Dutch Boy team will honor Michael Dryman of Hendersonville, N.C., during the upcoming Hollywood Casino 400 weekend at Kansas Speedway as part of the Honor A Cancer Hero program. The initiative is presented by Advent Health and supported by the Martin Truex Jr. Foundation and the NASCAR Foundation.
Dryman, who has been battling stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer, was nominated by Jordan Wood Hicks, a co-owner of the No. 21 Menards/Dutch Boy Mustang Dark Horse. For the past three and a half years Dryman has undergone numerous surgeries and chemotherapy/radiation treatments.
He is the husband of Sasha Soares, who is employed by Team Penske and works closely with the Wood Brothers team. Dryman has two sons, Connor and Colton Dryman.
In nominating Dryman, Hicks wrote: “Michael has many friends in the racing community and appreciates their support and well wishes as he continues to fight each day.”
Although the Menards/Dutch Boy team won’t be in the battle for the championship going forward as they were eliminated after the opening round of the Playoffs, there’s still much to be gained as the premier series heads to Kansas Speedway for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400.
In the three races of the Round of 16, Burton and the Wood Brothers team proved they were capable of advancing in the Playoffs, but the breaks didn’t go their way.
“We were within 100 yards of a good finish at Atlanta and got caught up in a wreck,” Eddie Wood said. “Then we had a flat tire at Watkins Glen and power steering issues at Bristol.
“We’re out of Playoff contention now, but we can still gain as many points as we can. We can move up as high as fifth place, which is a pretty tall order, but it’s kind of like the old-style points system where you’re going for as many points as you can get.”
Burton and the No. 21 Menards/Dutch Boy team enter the weekend at Kansas Speedway 16th in the standings, 17 points behind 15th-place Brad Keselowski.
As the early, three-race rounds of the Playoffs conclude, the bottom four drivers and teams are dropped from championship contention and are left to settle the fifth through the 16th positions in the final standings. The top four will compete for the title and the next three points positions in the season finale at Phoenix.
There are four of us now,” Wood said. “There will be eight down the road and then 12.”
Practice for the Hollywood Casino 400 is set for Saturday at 12:05 Central Time (1:05 p.m. Eastern Time), to be followed by qualifying at 12:45.
Sunday’s 267-lap race is scheduled to get the green flag at 2 p.m. (3 p.m. Eastern) with TV coverage on USA Network.
Stage breaks are planned for Laps 80 and 165.
WBR PR
