The Mopar Parts Dodge team had worked tirelessly in the past few weeks to turn their fortunes around and bring home the type of finishes they had collected earlier in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series season. At the final event of the season, the Dodge Charger 250 at Kawartha Speedway their efforts were rewarded.
As practice began on the high banked, high speed track Ron Beauchamp Jr. was posting impressive times in the Mopar Parts Dodge. "This is a really nice track, a lot of fun to drive, especially when the car feels this good," smiled the driver. Beauchamp would post the eighth quickest qualifying time during time trials and start on the outside of row four.
It's been a struggle for Team Mopar in the second half of the season. The Mopar Parts Dodge has shown good speed at times but a host of mechanical troubles and incidents have prevented them from showing how strong a team they are. Determined to change their luck all looked positive in the early going. "I just cruised around out there," said Beauchamp. "The track had cooled down and changed a lot since the afternoon session and we just wanted to stay in the top ten until our pit stop and make a few changes."
Taking advantage of a caution period prior to the halfway point Team Mopar performed perfectly giving Beauchamp two fresh tires, fuel to go the distance and adjusting the handling on the car. �I like the idea to pit early," said Beauchamp. "We needed to make changes and when the stops cycle through you should have track position later on and that's how it worked out for us."
As other teams made their stops The Mopar Parts Dodge continued to run strong lap after lap. Often times a driver needs to be aggressive to succeed. However Beauchamp knew he would have to preserve his car to make sure he had sufficient tires left for the end after the early pit stop. "I was just taking it easy, getting off the throttle a bit early when I could to preserve the car and the race really started to come to us," said the driver.
As the laps wound down Beauchamp would move up to third in the running order and with a couple of late restarts hoped to gain further positions on a green, white checkered finish. "I tried to run a little harder on the restart but it didn't work out for us," said Beauchamp. "I was really pushing, but the car took a couple of laps for the tires to come in, five more laps and we would have been there."
The third place podium finish by Team Mopar is the kind of showing they wanted to end the racing season. "This really gives us a boost headed into the off season," said Beauchamp. "The guys are already starting to look ahead to next year, and it's nice for Mopar, Exide, Mobil One and everybody that supports us and stuck with us. And a big congratulations to Dodge in winning the manufacturers cup."
The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series will celebrate a successful inaugural season with a year end banquet to be held Saturday, October 13th in Toronto, ON. Team Mopar will be present at the festivities. For the complete schedule, results and other information log onto http://www.nascarlocalracing.com/
This release prepared by, TL Sports & Entertainment
No comments:
Post a Comment