Hard Racing Provides Experience at ODS 75 Lapper

The #33 car during qualifying at Old Dominion Speedway

This is probably the only two tire night David Polenz Racing will participate in this year at Old Dominion Speedway. The new sponsorships with VPX Sports/Redline Power Rush and Circle K/On the Run Stores will allow the team to travel to different tracks, which means they can miss nights they are only allowed to buy two tires. Two tire nights present struggles and it is difficult to get a good handling car, which makes for some very edgy racing.

Practice

The sun was out and the track was hot and slick so it made practice pretty interesting. David was second quickest during the first practice but he wasn't happy with the car. The crew made some adjustments for the second practice and the car handled better and David clocked in second fastest again. The team made a few more adjustments to the car for the third practice which David wasn’t pleased with, but he still finished with the second fastest time.

Qualifying

The adjustments made prior to the last practice were reversed and David went out for qualifying last. He wasn't happy with the car and finished fourth quickest. He felt that the track had changed since earlier in the day so more adjustments were made to the car for the feature.

Race

Since David won the race last week, when the track did the invert of the top six for the feature, David lined up sixth. On the start of the race the top six cars ran side by side for the first eight laps. Even though things sorted out a little, the top six cars were racing each other very hard and it was nose to tail with a lot of bumping and sliding around. With all of the tight racing, making passes was very tough. It seemed there were always a couple cars side by side and rubbing. About fifteen laps in the two leaders came together and the leader spun around, sending David up towards the wall. He did a good job and kept it off the wall. On the restart he lined up fifth and the tight hard racing continued. This went on for quite a few laps until the second and third place car made contact with each other and the second place car went spinning, but David was successfully able to avoid the wreck. On the restart David lined up third and the top six cars were running every lap like it was the last lap. With about twenty five laps to go the second place car got under the leader and they bumped and the leader slid up which allowed David to get past him too. At that point in the race, David had made his way into second place and was running well. Over the next several laps David made several attempts to pass the leader. Finally, with seven laps to go, David bumped the leader and he slid up the track and David got along side of him. When they went in to turn three and four they made more contact and David got a little sideways and the third place car hit him a little and David went spinning down the front straight. He kept it off the wall and was able to keep the car running. After the caution David restarted fifth and ran hard the last few laps and ended up finishing fifth. It was one heck of a race with tons of hard racing. David’s experience spinning out and sliding down the straight was just good hard racing for the win. While the team would rather have won, you have to love racing that hard for the win.

Please check out the new videos on David’s website, a two-part on board camera video from the race!