Pit Stop Miscue Spoils Top 5
Starting Spot for MB Motorsports and Carl Edwards
Indianapolis Raceway Park is very familiar to Carl Edwards and he showed it
this weekend.
Carl took to the track Thursday for the J.D. Byrider 100 USAC Silver Crown
race and drove to a 6th place finish, driving the last few laps on
just 7 cylinders.
Then on Friday, Carl and the #63 MB Motorsports team picked up where Carl left
off. There was only one practice session in preparation for the Power
Stroke 200 and they made the most of it – ending the session fourth fastest
on the speed chart.
The team had an early draw for qualifying and went out 11th of 41
trucks, right in the heat of the day. Despite that disadvantage, Carl
rolled around the track in 22.951 seconds and sat on the provisional pole for
a while. At the end of qualifying, Carl and the MB Motorsports team had
a 5th place starting position, the best qualifying effort by an MB
Motorsports driver in the team’s history.
The beginning of the race brought a good start for the #63 team. Carl
dropped a couple positions in the opening laps, but gathered himself up and
hung in the top 10 for the first 58 laps.
Then lady luck struck. On the team’s first pit stop a miscommunication
caused Carl to miss the pit stall and was forced to make another trip around
the track before pitting for 4 tires and fuel. Then two lug nuts jammed, slowing
the team down and throwing off everyone’s timing. The result was the loss
of a lap. In a hurry to get out of the pits, Carl took off before the
crew could remove the wrench from the truck following a wedge adjustment and
NASCAR directed the #63 Ford into the pits again for a stop & go penalty,
losing another lap and restarting the race in 30th position.
Carl returned to the track on a mission. The remainder of the race he
ran lap times as fast as the leaders. He gained a lap back late in the
race and brought the truck home in a respectable 19th place finish.
"We had a great truck tonight," commented Carl. "We should have run in the
top-10 all night. But the miscommunication on our first pit stop caused us to
go down a couple of laps. These guys gave me a great truck, as evidenced
by our fifth place starting position. We could run with the leaders and did
make up one of our laps. I feel bad for missing the pit. These guys work real
hard to give me a good truck every time we race. I'm still a rookie and man
did I learn a lesson tonight."
MB Motorsports owner and crew chief Mike Mittler was still pleased with the
results.
“This is a great bunch of guys on this team. It says a lot about Carl
and the whole team that we were able to battle our way back to a 19th
place finish. It wasn’t that long ago that the team would have been happy
with a solid run. The fact that we have come to expect better, shows what
we can expect in the future.”
Carl wasn’t finished racing on this weekend however. Saturday morning he flew
to Dallas Texas and competed in the regional and national points races for the
Baby Grand Stock Car Series. Carl broke the track record both Saturday and Sunday,
plus won each race, which were both road course races. He is the current Baby
Grand national points leader, having won 11 of 13 national races.
According to NASCAR rules, Carl Edwards can only run 7 races without jeopardizing
his opportunity to run for rookie-of-the-year in 2003. He will compete in two
more races in 2002 at Texas Motors Speedway on September 13 and at Las Vegas
Motor Speedway on October 13.
Keep up-to-date with MB Motorsports and Carl Edwards by visiting their website
at
http://www.mbracing.net
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