Handling Issues Return – Elliott Still Climbs in Point Standings

David Elliott and the Pennzoil Racing Team returned to Delaware Speedway on July 16^{th with high hopes after finally getting the car to handle properly during the Summer Shootout 9 days earlier.}

The plan was to run just one set of hot laps, but after the first session, David complained that the car was very loose on entry into the corners. After two more practice sessions, the car’s handing hadn’t improved…if anything, it continued to get worse.

   

“We just can’t seem to get this car to be consistent week to week,” said a frustrated David.

The Pennzoil Impala started 7th out of eight cars in his heat race and was only able to climb up to 6th by the end of the race. He described the car’s handling as ‘weird’ and the team got to work trying to improve the car’s cornering.

The #37 started deep in the field for the 35-lap feature race and David hoped to avoid trouble and take advantage of a couple of restarts to improve his position.

   

“We were all running in a tight pack from 6th to 10th place,” explained David. “A couple of times the guy in front of me bobbled, but we all had to check up to keep from running into one another. We couldn’t take advantage of their mistakes and get past them.

   

Unfortunately for David, the race ended up running caution free and, while the pack David was running in did reel in the 4th and 5th place cars, they couldn’t get past them he was only able to make it to 9th place by the time the checkered flag flew.

While the night was disappointing, the team did find a silver lining to the evening in that neither Jesse Kennedy nor Mark Watson raced. As a result, David did climb into 6th place in the Late Model point standings.

The team will be busy this week doing minor repair work to the car and looking for additional funding to help them run this coming weekend at Delaware Speedway.

Hope to see you at the track!