Richmond
QUALIFYING:
Tipton's Race Recap: "Another awesome showing by the GearUp Team. Congrats to Tim Latham for a dominant performance and bringing it home for the win. Rob Norfleet showed some real grit to run on old tires and hold off a lot of competition for a 9th place finish. Mike Politis made determination the cornerstone of his performance this week starting all the way in the rear of the field and finishing 11th. Brian McEvoy fought hard and somehow managed to avoid several situations that should've taken him out of the race but persevered to finish 12th. Brad Herman got bit by bad luck and the short-track bug to crash out in a wreck midway through the race. He ended his night in 30th but I have full faith that he'll bounce back in two weeks at Talledega. Great work everyone!!!"
No 5 - Timothy Latham
"First off, I want to mention that we had a fantastic run as a unit. 4 out of our 5 finished in the top 12. Brian and I qualified very well, 4th and 2nd respectively. I was able to get a little bit cleaner start than Burger who qualified on pole and was able to power around him on the outside before a caution came out on the first lap. Burger and Causey were breathing down my neck for the first half of the race. We had a few cautions early which made it so that we only needed to pit once under green. The only green flag stop for us was at lap 107, but we got a caution 5 laps later. 5 cars hadn't pit yet and came down on 113 and I was worried that those fresher tires were going to make it too difficult to stay up front. Twomey who pitted with me on 107 and Hosler who pitted on 113 were the biggest threats at that point and it was very difficult to hold them off, but I was good at shooting out to a lead on restarts and that definitely helped maintaining track position. We had another caution around lap 124 and everyone from 9th back took tires. Luckily, they were stuck in traffic and we got a few more cautions to set up a green-white-checkered. Some of the guys who took tires on 125 ended up sneaking inside the top 5 and I was worried we were going to get another caution to get them closer. But I was able to take the white flag, hold everyone off and get the W after leading 157 of 165. It was one of the funnest races I've had all season. Like I said after Texas, I love racing at Richmond.
Looking forward to Talladega in 2 weeks and we're going to try to go back to back, not only on the season but at Talladega itself. With this team and how good we are at pushing and superspeedway strategy, we should be able to do it again, even if it means I push one of them to the win. Thanks to Tipton for providing crucial information last night and great job to the team. Onto Talladega!"
No 6 - Michael Politis
"The setup was pretty good for me tonight although it would fall off after 40 laps since I spend pretty much all my time racing in traffic and battling for position.
We started the season pretty good as team, we have ways to go as we are still managing a couple mistakes we tend to make and we rolling into Talladega pretty optimistic, but we can't take a superspeedway too serious either especially since we are having fun lately.
A win for Tim tonight isn't unusual, but it was in fact impressive. His racing line was technical, he managed the lead well, his race craft was put to the test multiple times with a combination of restarts. Managed to stay ahead of all different strategies that were attempting to get by him. Very well done for Timothy Latham #5, and congrats on the victory!"
No 79 - Brian McEvoy
"Another race with good pace and another self inflicted wound that cost me a top 5 finish. Qualified P4 and ran in the top 5 the first stint. On the first pitstop under yellow I was too fast coming out of the pits and had to go to the end of the line. This made for a tough night as this track is very difficult to pass. I restarted in 26th and started started the long grind to work my way thru the pack. Over the next 115 laps I was able to keep my nose relatively clean and work my way thru the pack. With the last 30 laps having multiple cautions I was able to survive all the restarts and in some cases wrestling match and finish the race in P112. Overall a good result but should have had a lot more without my own mistake on pit road. Thanks to GearUp, Franklin Motorsports and Latham-Grafix for their support. Also, thank to Tipton for being the eye in the sky for us once again."