Kansas City, KS (October 3, 2009)—As the 2009 Nationwide Series season winds down, Eric McClure and his Hefty® Racing™ team headed to Kansas Speedway hoping to have another respectable finish to start the month of October. Although the weekend didn’t begin the way the team had hoped, with a practice issue with another car hindering the practice session and resulting in damage to the No. 24 Ford, they were able to overcome a 42nd starting position to finish the Kansas Lottery 300 in the 25th position.
“After the way our weekend started, I will definitely take the finish. We struggled during both practice sessions and got into a little deal with Steven (Wallace) near the end of final practice. We fixed the car then changed the setup so I didn’t know what to expect during our qualifying run. I gave up quite a bit of time during the run and it cost us. During the race there was some positive things, as we got racy at one point with the group of cars we should be running with. We learned some things and if we had the cautions fall just a bit differently we may have been just a bit higher. However, we kept working on the car and I believe I learned a lot and Chris (Wright, crew chief) learned a few things as well so we may be better from here on out. We fared far better than I have here previously.”
Starting the Kansas Lottery 300 from the 42nd position, the No. 24 Hefty® Odor Block™ Ford was shown in the 36th position when the first caution flag waved on lap two for a single car accident. Although just a few laps in McClure brought the car to pit-road for fuel only, which resulted in the loss of one position for the restart. Battling a car that was “loose on entry, tight through the center and loose off,” the Virginia driver lost a pair of laps to the race leader as he struggled to find a suitable groove around the speedway. When the second caution occurred on lap 57 Team Rensi Motorsports (TRM) had advanced to the 27th position, but after visiting pit-road on lap 61 for tires with an air-pressure adjustment, a track-bar adjustment and fuel and again on lap 63 to top off the fuel, the Hefty® Odor Block™ Ford restarted the 200-lap event in the 31st position.
Over the next twenty laps, McClure was able to maintain the position, although the car became too tight on entry, forcing him to “trail brake” his entry in order to keep the car on the bottom groove of the track. When the third caution waved for a single car spin McClure visited pit-road once again for fuel and a track-bar adjustment. When the race restarted, TRM was shown in the 30th position.
During the second half of the event, five additional cautions occurred with the team visiting pit-road three of those times for adjustments and fuel. The adjustments made during the later part of the race pacified the car’s handling enough to allow McClure to run his most consistent lap times. As a result the driver was able to advance three positions during the final sixty laps to finish the Kansas Lottery 300 in the 25th position. With this finish, TRM remained 28th in NASCAR Nationwide Series Owner Standings and 17th in NASCAR Driver Standings.
The next for the Hefty® Racing™ team is the Copart 300 at California Speedway is. The event is scheduled to begin at 4:30pm EST on Saturday, October 10, 2009.
