2025 Appalachian Mountain LM Speedweek at Bridgeport Speedway

Robinson Family Trying To Rebound From Trouble At Appalachian Speedweek

Robinson Family Trying To Rebound From Trouble At Appalachian Speedweek

Eager for Selinsgrove Ford Appalachian Mountain Speedweek, it's been a rough stretch for husband-and-wife racers Ross and Amanda Robinson of Delaware.

Jun 15, 2025 by Kyle McFadden
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Ross and Amanda Robinson looked forward to Selinsgrove Ford Appalachian Mountain Speedweek.

Planning to contest every miniseries event, the Georgetown, Del., husband-wife duo don’t often get the opportunity to race together. Four rainouts and a pair of costly setbacks later, the Robinsons are now trying to put what’s been a headache-inducing miniseries behind them.

On Friday at Bedford (Pa.) Speedway, Ross lost an engine during the second dash — a second-round qualifying session for the top-three drivers from each time trial group — while Amanda took a hard hit in the 35-lap feature after something broke.

That on a night when Amanda climbed her way to sixth from the 19th-starting spot and Ross felt like he had a top-five car.

“It was starting off a lot better than it had the last little bit, but ol' Lady Luck just had other plans for me,” Ross said. “Like, having two rounds of hot laps helped me a little bit because I tried something, and I felt like we were getting better.

“Just the way the night is, how it ended with Amanda, luckily she’s OK, but that car will need to go to the jig,” Ross added. “We have a motor that needs repaired and a car to go to the jig, it’s time to hit the pause button.”

Amanda wouldn’t call the right-side-first hit that smashed-in the front of her car the hardest hit she’s ever endured — “I've taken some pretty hard ones,” she added — but there were “hurt feelings” and “hurt hearts” from the melee.

“We do the best we can, but when it goes south, of course, it really goes south,” Amanda added. “So we'll go home, we'll regroup, I guess, and see how bad everything is. Hopefully our boss don't want to fire us and we’ll try to go again.”

After Friday’s tumultuous night at Bedford, Ross was ready to “head this hauler to Georgetown as fast it can go,” and then “cut the grass, drink a beer, and see where the future lies” upon assessing the damage and state of his race team.

When the Robinsons landed back at their Georgetown, Del., base Saturday morning, car owner Ken Adams told them both “to keep diggin’.” The Robinsons did catch a break Saturday when Lincoln Speedway’s miniseries event rained out in Abbottstown, Pa., because they could’ve used an extra night to recover. 

Amanda won’t be in action for Sunday’s miniseries event at Bridgeport (N.J.) Motorsports Park, but Ross plans on it.

Each had different goals for 2025 Appalachian Mountain Speedweek: Ross wanted to contend for wins and rekindle “the fun” that “hasn’t been there yet” since pulling off the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series after April 27’s event at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway.

Amanda, meanwhile, had “the realistic goal” of qualifying for “every show and be competitive.” Friday at Bedford was her one and only feature that she qualified for after falling two spots shy of transferring last Saturday at Port Royal and one spot shy Tuesday at Path Valley Speedway Park in Spring Run, Pa.

“I didn’t made the first two (shows), so I don't know if I was trying too hard. Like, I wanted to really make up for the other couple nights that I had, but, yeah, I don't know,” Amanda said. “We had a really good night going” before the Bedford wreck.

Amanda doesn’t know what exactly happened that wiped her out of contention with three laps remaining.

“I was up to sixth, I think (and drivers she was pursuing) were like right there,” Amanda said. “I knew a couple of them were running the bottom, so I was just going to stay where I was at, but I don't know. I'm going to give American Racers a shoutout. It wasn’t a right-front tire, all the tires are up. I don't know what happened, though.

“We’re coming out of back straightaway, and me and Bryan (Bernheisel) kind of got together a little bit, and he got into my left rear, just racing hard, no big deal. But it's like when I went into (turn) three, like, something didn’t feel right. And I don't know. Next thing you know, I just shot straight to the wall. 

“Once I hit that cushion wrong, it just escalated, you know? So I don't know. I really don't even know what to say about what happened.”

Amanda was along for the ride in smashing Bedford’s turn-four guardrail. The best she could hope for is her competitors charging behind to evade her disabled vehicle that stopped at the exit of turn four. Thankfully, additional damage didn’t follow.

“I had a front-row seat for it,” Ross said. “I never worry about her just like she never worries about me. We watch each other race enough and race each other enough. My worry was that, obviously it was a hit and I knew it was bad, but my biggest worry was her getting hit sitting there.

“She then looked left to us right away and signaled to us she was OK. I saw her take her steering wheel off, and then I knew she was OK. That’s all that mattered to me.”

Amanda made her third 2025 start at Bedford. Primarily crewing for her husband now, she doesn’t race like she once did, but she still sets a competitive precedence for herself. Last year, she won a $3,000 feature at Georgetown and earlier this year, she finished 14th with the Lucas Oil regulars at Georgetown.

“I don't race that much anymore, and it's not a good excuse. But I'm around it enough, I know the rights and the wrongs,” Amanda said. “But I just said, my realistic goal this week was to make every show and be competitive.

“I was terrible in qualifying again (on Friday). I don't know why. We kind of did a few little things like we would normally do, and then come right to life in the B-main and of course, we went right back out for the feature, so I knew it was going to be about the same thing, and the car was really good.”

Amanda would like to get in more racing this season, especially because she and her husband aren’t traveling up and down the road on the Lucas Oil tour. But because of the team’s limited crew help, and as she found out this week, it’s much more difficult maintaining two cars.

“I'd be lying to you if I said I didn’t,” Amanda said when asked if she’d like to get more racing in this season. “It is tough sometimes, especially when you only have two cars because you got to have a lot of people lined up to go with you. So it was like, Tuesday night (at Path Valley), it was four of us working on two cars, including me and Ross.”

Ross hasn’t gotten much racing in himself since dropping off the Lucas Oil tour, only starting five features since April 27’s final race as a full-time series regular — a 26th-place finish at Port Royal.

He has a top-five during May 10’s weekly action at Selinsgrove Speedway and a top-10 during May 17’s weekly action at Port Royal, but misfortune and rainouts have followed him since.

Ross had no forewarning of his engine letting go on him during Bedford's dash that guaranteed him a top-six starting spot. 

“I was tight on the first lap, then I changed how I entered on the second lap into one and two. Like, I felt it flutter, and I looked down at the gauges and all of a sudden, I felt it tighten up,” Ross said. “So I knocked it out of gear and shut it off. And that was that.”

His last eight racing attempts: 15th with the World of Outlaws on May 19 at Bedford, rainout, rainout, 14th on June 7 in Speedweek action at Port Royal, rainout, 23rd on Tuesday at Path Valley, rainout and then Friday’s engine failure.

He’s hoping Sunday at Bridgeport can encourage him for the rest of June, namely for next weekend’s Firecracker 100 at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa., he’s scheduled to race.

“The way we changed our schedule this year, trying to make it a little more fun-based instead of business-based, the fun hasn’t been there yet,” Ross said. “It might be time to regroup to see what’s best for us right now.”

Though not much has gone Ross’s way of late, he still wishes to campaign as a Lucas Oil full-timer. He won’t rule out a return on the tour in future, as long he rights the ship first. 

“I’m not going to lie to you, my heart is still in the national touring,” Ross said. “I want to be out there so bad, I can’t stand it. It just wasn’t in the cards for this year. You never know, maybe next year we’ll take another crack at it, or we might not. Luckily we have a good support group of everybody behind us.”