MICHIGAN
QUALIFYING:
Tipton's Race Recap: "Strategy, team-work, hard driving, surviving & not surviving wrecks in the field, and a side helping of luck for most of the team sums up this weeks race at Michigan. That luck, unfortunately, was bad luck for Mike Politis this week. He found a huge wreck in front of him and got collected. He, however, managed to hang in there like a hair in a biscuit and finished on the lead lap in 24th position. Unfortunately, this placed him out of the playoffs. There's still a slim chance of him sneaking in next week so be on the lookout for any four leaf clovers to send him in the mail this week.
Tim Latham started 7th and finished a solid 4th after leading a few laps early in the race. Brian McEvoy started 23rd and moved up through the field to give the team another top ten finish in 9th. Brad Herman gave another solid performance this week by starting 12th and finishing 11th. He ran in the thick of things all night and fought hard. Robert Norfleet had a better race than his results showed. He spent the night driving through a bees nest from his 21st starting position to finish in 12th. It was a solid all around night for the team and we currently have four guys in the playoffs with a potential fifth guy if Mike Politis can catch a break next week. As an added bonus, we may have beaten the previously undefeated Tank Racing in the Team Championships this week. We'll have to wait for the points to post but I'm pretty sure that we handed them their first loss this season. Between individual achievements and the team work this week, I'd say we're carrying a lot of momentum into the playoffs next week at Kansas. Great job gang. Let's keep up the good work."
No 6 - Michael Politis
"My race was short and sweet. Lasted about 13 laps. Another race another incident where I get the number 6 collected in a wreck. I'll need to do better job avoiding wrecks SRN I wasn't too concerned about points whether I had enough to make in or not we had a good night with the team. Looking forward to the next race! The TEAM had fun and we got it done. Thank you to the Premium Members that subscribe to support our racing team. Best!"
No 5 - Timothy Latham
"A little late, but better late than never. I had a pretty uneventful night. Other than getting tangled up with the 28 in a racing deal, I was raced clean by everyone and didn't really do anything of note. 1st run I drove too hard and lost spots. 2nd run was decent all around. 3rd run I waited a little too long to gain spots. But I ended up finishing in the top 10 again and I have some good momentum heading into Michigan. Hopefully we can cap off the regular season with a great finish as a team and take that momentum into the playoffs. We should all make it barring anything catastrophic tonight. Thanks to Tipton for everything he does during the race and great job to the TEAM for finishing strong in the end at Bristol of all places. Onto Michigan!"
No 79 - Brian McEvoy
"Solid night overall. Did what I needed to do to secure a playoff spot. Over drove turn 1 in qualifying which relegated me to a 23rd starting position. At the start of the race just focused on saving tires and protecting the high line hold my position. Was able to miss a couple of wrecks in the first 20 laps and move up the field a bit. Finally got a long run after lap 20 and was able to move up in to the top 15 before pitting on lap 49. From there I broke the race down in to two 25 lap runs. I was up to 10th on lap 75 when I made the last pit stop. Had a clean stop and came out and ran hard battling between 8th and 12th. Was able to make a couple of passes and secure and hold on to 10th. Excited for my first ever playoff run. Hopefully team GearUp Apparel can have a strong playoff run. Thanks to GearUp, Franklin Motorsports and Latham-Grafix for their support. As always thanks to Tipton for supporting the team tonight and keep us on point from a strategy perspective."