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Rip Michels and his Stock Building Supply/Ladco Racing/ Victory
Circle Chassis Chevrolet Monte Carlo headed to Bakersfield,
California this past Saturday night to compete in the “Star
Nursery.Com 300” at Mesa Marin Raceway. This was race thirteen of
fourteen for the NASCAR AutoZone Elite Southwest Series.
The team arrived in Bakersfield, California on Thursday evening to
enjoy the 28th and final October Classic race at Mesa Marin. For
28 years Mesa has held this 3-day event, which included Super Late
Models on Thursday night, Late Models on Friday night, and the big
show, the Elite and Grand National divisions, on Saturday night.
The team was treated to a great Super Late Model race, and
afterwards, got to camp out in the Mesa Marin parking lot with a
multitude of fans and other competitors.
On Friday, the team unloaded the car for an open test session, and
from the moment they put the car on the track, they knew they had
a fast ride. Rip set the fastest time during the open practices
with an 18.363. He then backed that up on Saturday by posting the
fastest time again in practices, with a lap of 18.309. As
qualifying approached, the team felt confident that they had a
shot at the pole. Rip ended up qualifying third, but told the team
the car was much better than his lap of 18.239.
Rip would start the race second row inside. At the drop of the
green flag, Rip, knowing that this was a 300-lap event, played it
conservative for the first half of the race. He settled in for the
long haul and stayed in the top ten most of the night. As pit
stops approached, the teams stuck to their game plan, and with 50
laps to go, were riding in third. Rip thought he had the best
strategy as he had the freshest tires of any of the competitors,
but a late race call on an adjustment to the car, made the car too
loose to make a charge at the lead. Rip ended up finishing in
third for his second straight top 5 finished.
“We had an awesome race car this evening,” said Rip. “The team did
a great job of preparing this car for the race and it showed. We
stuck to our game plan and it resulted in us having an excellent
finish. We felt like we had the car to beat, we just went a little
to far in our last adjustment, but the way our season has been, we
will gladly take third.”
Rip’s next event will be race number 14 for the NASCAR AutoZone
Elite Southwest Division at the mile track of Phoenix
International Raceway on November 10, 2005 located in Phoenix, AZ.
For more information about Rip Michels and his sponsors, please
visit www.ripmichels.com |
