John Wes Townley showed plenty of speed during Friday’s ARCA General Tire 200 and Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Sparks Energy 200 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in the No. 05 Jive Communications Chevrolets.
But when the checkered flag flew over both events, Tony was credited with finishes outside of the top 20.
On Friday, Townley was biding his time and riding fourth when he suffered a cut left-rear tire during the opening segment of the 200 mile ARCA event. Unfortunately, the tire failure occurred entering Turn 1, forcing Townley to limp his Chevrolet around the mammoth 2.66-mile facility.
After his Athenian Motorsports over-the-wall team bolted on four new tires and made the necessary repairs, Townley found himself four laps behind the leaders. On lap 50, the ARCA point leader entering the event was forced to park his Chevrolet due to a transmission malfunction.
“We qualified fourth but nothing went right after that,” said Townley, who dropped to third in the ARCA driver standings. “We’ll have a few weeks off to regroup on the ARCA side and look forward to getting back after it at Toledo Speedway later this month (on May 22nd).”
On Saturday, Townley quickly sped through a talented Xfinity Series field after qualifying 24th. Just before the midway point, he had driven his Jive Communications Chevrolet up to seventh in the running order. But several laps later, the 26-year-old driver was forced to come out of the throttle briefly to avoid triggered a multi-car pileup while running three-wide.
The end result dropped Townley out of the lead draft. With no drafting help, the long green flag run left Townley pinned one lap in arrears.
Townley finally managed to gain the free pass during the day’s final caution.
But the Watkinsville, Ga. driver was left with a 26th-place finish and was credited with being the final car on the lead lap.
“We spent half the race trying to regain that lap,” said Townley, whose next Xfinity Series start will be in Daytona Beach, Fla. on Friday night July 1st. “Our car had solid speed in the big pack. But we struggled otherwise. We have a new superspeedway car we plan on debuting in Daytona.
“Hopefully, it will provide us a much better result.”
Townley will return to action in the NASCAR Camping World Series this week as he heads to Kansas Speedway for the Toyota Tundra 250 on Friday night May 6th. The race starts at 8:30 p.m. eastern and will air live on Fox Sports 1.
AThenian Motorsports PR
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