While some teams say no big deal, others are scrambling as a result of yesterday’s rain-shortened practice session, which was supposed to be four hours long. However, the 44 ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards cars in the garage for the 50th running of the Lucas Oil 200 at Daytona Int’l Speedway only got about an hour and 20 minutes on track before the steady rain came down, ending the session way early. According to several teams, Saturday morning’s (raceday) 45-minute final practice from 10:00-10:45 a.m. just got way more important.
Frank Kimmel – driver of the No. 44 Ansell-Menards Toyota: “We had a radiator split on us yesterday, and the guys did a great job taking one out of the backup car and getting it in our primary, but that happened right in the middle of practice, so we just ran out of time. We didn’t do any mock qualifying runs either. Normally, the raceday morning final practice doesn’t get too many takers because nobody wants to tear their cars up, but I think we’re going to have a big crowd tomorrow.”
Bobby Gerhart – driver of the No. 5 MAVTV American Real Chevrolet: “With our practice cut way short yesterday, it definitely makes tomorrow (final practice) more important. We’re definitely going out. We’ve got more to accomplish before we line up and go race.”
Paul Andrews – crew chief of the No. 77 Barbera’s Autoland-Cunningham Motorsports Dodge: “It didn’t scramble us too bad because we got to test here in December and last month at Talladega. We wanted to draft a lot more than we got to yesterday, to get the feel for what we’ve got. Normally, we might not go out in the final practice tomorrow, but that all changes now. I think it’ll change for a lot of people.”
Ed Pompa – driver of the No. 10 Milton CAT-Double H Ranch Chevrolet: “We only got a lap in before the motor blew. I was going through three and four, and all of a sudden we had a wicked vibration. I just shut it off. The crew worked really hard and changed the engine last night. But none of us are exactly sure what we’ve got. The crew chief will decide if we go out tomorrow.”
Donnie Richeson – crew chief of the No. 52 Curb Records Chevrolet: “We didn’t test in December, so we’re not exactly sure what we’ve got. We at least want to know if the water temp will be ok. Yah, I’d say this puts a bigger importance on tomorrow.”
Josh Williams – driver of the No. 02 Southwest Florida Cable Construction Ford: “We really didn’t accomplish anything yesterday. The car started vibrating early in practice, then it lost 4-500 RPMs. I just shut it off. We’ve changed everything. Changed gears, changed the transmission, now we just changed motors this morning. So we don’t know what we have for qualifying. I can’t see us not going out in practice tomorrow. Normally, we probably wouldn’t do that final practice because no one wants to tear anything up, but I can’t see where we have a choice now.”
Bill Kimmel – crew chief of the No. 68 Gary Yeomans-Clarksville Schwinn Ford: “It definitely set us back a little. We didn’t get to test this particular car. We had some rubs on the fenders yesterday, and we’re going to have to work our way through that. We hadn’t planned on going out tomorrow, but we will now.”
Engine Changes: There were two engine changes in the ARCA garage after yesterday’s rain-shortened practice session. Both Ed Pompa (No. 10 Milton Cat-Double H Ranch Chevrolet) and Josh Williams (No. 02 Southwest Florida Cable Construction Ford) changed engines in time for today’s Menards Pole Award Qualifying presented by Ansell.
There were no on-track incidents in yesterday’s practice session.
Menards Pole Award Qualifying presented by Ansell gets underway at 2:00 p.m. today.
ARCAracing.com will feature live timing and scoring of all the on-track activity, including qualifying, final practice Saturday and the race to follow.
The 50th Anniversary Lucas Oil 200 presented by MAVTV American Real at Daytona is live on SPEED Saturday at 4:30.
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