Season 8, Chase Race 3: Darlington

Last Race: A four wide photo finish saw Will Anderson taking a win and locking himself into the round of 10. A couple of rough races for some of our chasers tightened up the playoff battle to make it to the next round. A 3 way tie between 9th 10th and 11th leaves the cutline red hot going into the cut race at Darlington.
This Race: It's throwback weekend at Darlington and to spice things up even more, 5 chase drivers will be eliminated after 250 miles of action. Kyle Missimer and last week's winner Will Anderson can breathe a sigh of relief as they are both locked into the next round regardless of how the Lady in Black treats them. As for our other chasers, they'll be looking to go the distance without collecting a Darlington stripe.
Race Info: 184 laps/251 miles
2017 Pole Sitter: D. Calhoun [Ret.] (29.349)
2017 Race Winner: D. Harris (50 laps led)
Previous Winners: R. Sandri [Ret.] (2012), J. Kristen [Ret.] (2011)



Qualifying Results:

 

@DJHarris48: We won here last year, our HMS guys have assembled a great piece of machinery, and we start P8. Can't wait to climb through the field and go back-to-back!

 

@BrendonH12: "Yes, can we get that truck series glitch where I automatically win the pole, please? Haha! Boy, we got our work cut out for us come race day, but I wouldn't want to have any other team helping me get there than the defending race winners! Hopefully we can get up there and either help D.J. pick up another win here or vice versa. Looking forward to making our way through the pack and avoiding the 'big one.'"

 

MW10: “We got the pole! Wow, this OPP group brought some mad speed with us this weekend. It’s pretty cool to get my first career pole in the throwback race running a scheme honoring my childhood hero, Tony Stewart. Hopefully this speed can transfer over into the race and we can go for the W!”

 

"Shit, I thought I had a couple more days to get a throwback scheme done!"

 

“Long race. We’ll see what we’ve got when the green flag drops. Confident we can stay on the lead lap and mix things up when we can.”

 

"Been close to winning here before, good qualifying effort and so far the car has felt good in race trim. See what happens."

 

"Well crap, this qualifying setup is NOT helping matters any."

 

RB- Really have to find a better overall qualifying setup, starting mid pack almost every week just kills us in the long run. Hopefully we've got a good setup for the race and can do this 98 Darlington throwback proud.

 

SRD needs a good run from both teams this weekend.

 

"We're sitting on the edge. Really need a big run or we'll be watching from the usual office as someone else celebrates."

 

"Car feels better in race trim. We'll be fine, just gotta stay out of trouble and advance to the next round. Feels nice seeing that #2 at the top of the standings."

 

"Honestly not expecting much cause of the way our season has gone sadly. I don't really understand.."

 

Looking at a Sunday start for the race so all throwback flats need to be in before then.

 

10 minutes until the green flag drops at Darlington.

 

"We have to do our best tonight. Otherwise we are out of it."

 

Matt Wichelman and Jakub Smetana bring the field of 38 off of turn 4 and the green flag waves. We are racing at Darlington!

 

Lap 1: Wichelman leads the field through turns 1 and 2 and takes off with the lead. Webster able to follow the 10 to 2nd off turn 2. Smetana in the gray area on the outside of turn 2 loses momentum and allows Mallon and Hooper by as well. The 5 regathers though and powers back by both the 11 and 93 on the outside in turns 3 and 4 to hold onto 3rd.

Lap 3: Wichelman holding off Webster for now but the 95 is filling up the rear view of the rookie. Top 5 still unchanged with Gegner 6th, Kunkel 7th, Busch 8th, Peters 9th, and Harris in 10th.

 

Lap 4: First incident of the night for one of our playoff drivers. Greg Woodard in the 41 picks up a Darlington Stripe in turns 1 and 2. Woodard was 26th but now drops a few spots after the contact with the wall. No signs of smoke for the 41 so Woodard stays on track. Up front Webster makes the move for the lead off turn 2. Wichelman not the greatest of runs on corner exit and Webster will take advantage down the backstretch and take over the race lead.

 

Lap 5: Smetana to the left rear of Wichelman into turn 1 for 2nd. The 10 backs out to let him by and here comes the rest of the top 5. Mallon, Hooper, and Gegner drive past as Wichelman gets too close to the wall and he picks up a stripe. Definite right front damage to the 10 but he stays out and now runs in 8th after the contact.



Lap 7: A bad couple of laps for Mallon in the 93. He gets out of the groove off turn 2 and lost a bunch of spots but kept it off the wall. That'll drop him back to 12th from 3rd. Early look at where our playoff drivers are running.

K Missimer - 25th
W Anderson - 35th
D Ingram - 18th
T Mallon - 12th
B Nixon - 32nd
D Harris - 8th
S Merzlak - 28th
A Curtain - 23rd
S Lennox - 24th
T Kunkel - 5th
J Isaacs - 9th
G Woodard - 31st
J Craigo - 21st
M Peters - 19th
J Hooper, Sr - 3rd