Up and Down Season Ends with an Up and Down Day

Labour Day weekend marked the final races of the season at Delaware Speedway for the David Elliott Racing Team.

After fixing the handling issues at the last race two weeks ago. The team looked to climb into the top 10 in the final points standing during the two 25-lap qualifying races and hoped that their runner-up finish in last year’s APC 300 would be a sign of things to come during this year’s event.

   

As practice began, so did the roller coaster of emotions. The car’s handling was off…again. David complained that the car was loose going into and coming out of the corners, but was tight in the middle. Frustration filled the pits as the #37 team tried several adjustments, hoping to get the Pennzoil Impala to handle properly.

   

The team still wasn’t happy as the car rolled out to qualify. David couldn’t get the car to work in the corners and qualified 32^nd out of 39 cars.

The team made more radical adjustments. They changed both outside springs, hoping to get rid of either the push or the loose condition. As David took the green for the first 25-lap qualifying race he said the tight condition was gone…but the car was out-of-control loose. He nursed the #37 home to an 11^th place finish. 

    

More changes were in order before the next qualifying race. These adjustments made the car better. Not perfect, but better. David again moved through the field and avoided trouble to bring the car home to a 7^th place finish. 

These two races made up the final points races of the Delaware season. David entered the day in 11^th in points, but his skill at driving an ill-handing car helped him climb into 10^th place overall in the final points standings.

  

Next, it was time for the big show – the Total/APC 200. The race was not for points, but paid $10,000 to win.

The team made further adjustments to the car and were feeling more confident that the changes they were making were helping the car handle better each time it took to the track.

David started the race on the inside of row 9 and immediately had to put his driving skills to work. The caution flag flew early and often and David narrowly avoided a couple of wrecks. He said the car was drivable but still needed adjustments. However, he didn’t want to give up track position by pitting to make any adjustments that early on in the race.

When the field restarted on lap 12, David was well inside the top 20. The drivers just ahead of David attempted to go three-wide coming off turn two, setting off a melee which collected a number of cars, including the #37 Pennzoil Impala.

“They all spun in front of me and blocked the track. I spun into them, but didn’t have much damage at all,” explained David. “If the wreck ended right there, we would have been okay.” 

But it didn’t stop there. Just after David came to a halt at the bottom of the track, Doug Stewart’s #2 slammed into the back of the #37.

David limped the car back to pit road and the team worked to try to get the car back onto the track. Unfortunately, there was too much damage and the car was retired from the race.

   

“After finishing 2^nd in this race last year, this is a real disappointment,” said David. “This is the biggest event of the year and I wanted to put on a good show for Pennzoil and all my other sponsors. We’ll regroup over the winter and be back at it next year.”

A top 10 standing in the points was a real accomplishment given the amount of talent at Delaware Speedway and the fact that this was the team’s first full year campaigning at the track. The team will have a busy winter getting ready for the 2010 season. Watch for us Friday nights at Delaware again next year.