Trackside: For Pen Argyl racer TJ Lilly, a fresh start is a good thing

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“I eventually did get everything, all my stuff, back. My helmet, gloves and all the rest. I lost my two-way radio in the flip, somewhere. It went out into the woods, somewhere, but thankfully, I did get everything else returned to me. "The car basically needed a brand-new body and a front clip, however, we just didn’t have the time to make repairs because the season already was in motion. It forced us to switch over to our back-up car and run all season using the back-up car. It threw us completely off our game ...” Lilly, who began his racing career at the age of 4 racing Kid Karts, followed his grandfather, father, uncle and cousins, plus others in a long-line of family racers. By the time he was 7, Lilly moved on to Slingshots and at the age of 11 he strapped into a 270cc Micro Sprint. “We were racing three days a week for three seasons there in the beginning, racing on asphalt and dirt tracks. I got a lot of wins at Borger’s Speedway early in my career,” said Lilly. “My dad [Travis Lilly] wanted me to move up to a different division every two or three seasons and not spend too much time in a single division. Now that we are running the 358 Modified cars, I believe we’ll settle in that division for a while. I’d try racing in a big block Modified if I got an offer, but we can’t afford that with our own team.” After a stint with the 270cc Micro Sprint Cars, Lilly progressed into a 600cc Wingless Micro Sprint Car, running at Kutztown. Lilly, at 16, took a leap to a Wingless Crate powered Sprint Car at New Egypt Speedway in New Egypt, N.J., but quickly made the decision to move on to a Sportsman car, instead. Lilly won a Sportsman feature in 2016 and began the 2017 campaign running a 358 Modified entry weekly at New Egypt, nearly a two-hour ride every Saturday night from home. With a brand-new season just a few weeks away, Lilly has plenty of reasons to be optimistic in 2020, including shortening his travel time by racing at Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville. [More Sports] Sage Karam wins virtual race in IndyCar iRacing League debut » “After being a weekly regular at New Egypt for some five seasons, it kind of stinks moving on, however, moving to Grandview Speedway weekly every Saturday night brings us a lot closer to home,” Lilly said. “It’s only a 45-minute ride one-way. I can have more of my family members at the track watching us race and it’s a fresh, new challenge. I believe we can be weekly contenders. I just want to qualify weekly, finish races, get some top 5 and top 10 finishes and be consistent. “The 2020 season is my 15th-year in racing already and I’ll be racing against drivers who have raced there for 20 or 25-years and some have, maybe, 30-years of experience racing there. I’ll certainly be different, but I just want to be raced the way I plan to race. “Our engines run on racing gasoline and the surface usually is smooth, slick and slippery and that’s when I can shine. The surface means throttle control and I enjoy that type of racing the most," he said. [More Sports] Indianapolis 500 postponed until August because of the coronavirus » Lilly believes his racing career is still a work in progress, no doubt, but definitely believes he’ll fit right in Saturday nights at the very po[CENSORED]r high-banked lightning-fast third-mile Grandview Speedway dirt track once the 2020 racing season gets the green flag.