Up and Down Evening for Elliott

 

When the #37 Pennzoil Impala rolled off the trailer last Friday, driver David Elliott knew he could only improve on the previous week’s disappointing finish after piling into the turn one wall.

With repairs made, the team hoped they were done with the racing gremlins that had been plaguing them all year.

   

David was very pleased with the speed of the car in practice and managed to qualify 4^th quickest in time trials! We were within a tenth of   the top driver and defending champion Steve Roblee.  “That was the best our car has been since we finished second in the APC 300 back in 2008,” he said.

 

   

 

In the first of two 25-lap features making up leg one of Delaware’s Triple Crown Series, David started 4th and fell into 5th place after 2 laps of racing on the outside. They ran 17laps without a caution and David was keeping pace with the top 4 cars. But as a they restarted David lost a few spots but managed to battle back to a 6th place finish!

   

Before the second race of the evening, the team made a few adjustments to tighten up the car. As soon as the green flag fell David knew they had finally hit on the right combination for the car.

The #37 stayed between 7th and 11th for the first 19 laps of the race, before a cut right front tire brought David to the pits. By the time the Pennzoil Impala limped onto pit lane and the team changed the tire, the rest of the field was taking the white flag, so David just drove the car back to the hauler and scored a 18^th place finish.

“I could have stopped on the track brought out a yellow flag and changed the tire under caution,” explained David, “but I didn’t want to get black flagged for intentionally bringing out a caution, so I drove it in.”

Even with a disappointing ending to the evening, David and the team are pleased that the car is finally handling properly and are looking forward to this Friday’s races at Delaware Speedway. See you there!