Elliott Weaves His Way to a Second Place Finish
Intense.
That
was the one word David Elliott used to describe Saturday
night’s late model feature race at Flamboro Speedway. But
more on that later…
The
evening began with the car pushing in warm-ups, but after a
slight stagger adjustment, the car was ready to start
outside pole for the first heat race. David drove deep into
turn one on the opening lap, passed pole-sitter Richard
Holmes and never looked back. Eight laps later, David had
captured won his heat race for the second consecutive week.
Based
on the new system used to line up the feature race, David
was scheduled to start 13th. When two cars
scheduled to start near the front opted to move to the back,
David took the green flag in 11th place.
The
#37 Chevy hugged the bottom groove and quickly began passing
cars. With the #82 of Jason Shaw glued to David’s bumper,
the two cars wove their way up to 3rd and 4th
place, respectively. As was the case last week, David soon
found himself battling with the 2nd-place car of
Mark Burbridge.
The
three cars remained nose-to-tail, weaving in and out of
slower traffic – sometimes 3-wide. Although Burbridge’s car
was pushing in the corners, the combination of traffic and
pressure from Shaw prevented David from making a move to
take second place.
The
caution flag flew on lap 29, giving the drivers…and fans…a
chance to catch their breath. It also meant that the #27,
#37 and #82 were able to pull up directly behind leader Paul
Howse.
Shortly after the restart David took advantage of
Burbridge’s push condition and took over second place,
bringing Shaw with him. The two drivers set off after Howse,
but there weren’t enough laps left to catch the leader and
Elliott had to settle for the runner-up position.
“That
was the most intense race I’ve run in a late model,” said
David. “The car handled great in traffic and we needed that
with all the two- and three-wide racing.”
Fans
certainly got their money’s worth on Saturday night!
The
David Elliott Racing Team is looking forward to a weekend
off for the late models, but the team is also looking
forward to getting back to Flamboro on June 9th
to challenge for the checkered flag again.
