Good News - Car is Fast, Bad News - Another DNF

A warm sunny afternoon greeted the Late Model teams as they returned to Delaware Speedway on June 18th, after a weekend off. David Elliott and the Pennzoil team hoped that the one-week break helped shake the bad luck that has been plaguing the team all season.

   

The first practice session didn’t raise any hopes when the #37 Impala lost its right rear axle before even getting up to speed.

“I can’t believe the little things that keep happening to us this year,” said a frustrated David.

During the second and third practice sessions, the car ran well, but it was still pushing through the corners. The team made some wedge and stagger adjustments for the first race of the night…the 35-lap feature which was rained out on June 4th.

  

On the first lap of the race, David narrowly missed a multi-car pileup exiting turn 2. While the car was a bit better, it still didn’t handle to David’s liking and he settled for a 6th place finish.

The team made a few more adjustments for their heat race and lined up in the second position for the start. David battled hard for the lead on the first lap, but had to settle back into third position – a position he maintained until the finish.

      

   

Before the 35-lap feature the team made an adjustment to the read end of the car to help it turn through the corners. David once again started on the outside pole position. He battled side-by-side for several laps with Jamie Ramsey giving up the position to the #22 car. David was then passed by Ron Sheridan for second place.

Ramsey and Sheridan pulled away for several laps, but once they began racing nose to tail, David began reeling them back in. By lap 27, David was within 5 car lengths of Ron Sheridan and was looking to close in by the end of the race and be there if anything was to happen between the leaders!!

Then, on lap 30, bad luck struck again.

“The car burped coming off turn 4, then shut off coming out of turn 2,” explained David. “I knew we weren’t out of fuel.” The next day the team would discover a fuel pickup problem which caused the engine to stall.

David coasted off the track, finishing 16th.

“Even with that bad luck at the end, I’m still happy with the night. We finally figured out our handling issues and were a competitive car and managed to climb into the top 10 in points,” beamed Elliott.

The team returns to Delaware Speedway on June 25th. See you there!