Elliott Turns best qualifying run of the season into top 10 finish.
David Elliott and the Team Clean crew ripped off a 14:629 at Watermelon Capitol Speedway on Saturday the 15th. The time was good enough for third place among the 39 entrants in the event. Thirty were scheduled to make the show, so as in the past two events competitors were sent home if they did not make the field. I tell you this to express the enormous amount of competition this year in the series; it is going to take a gargantuan effort to keep this team running up front all season long. That said the driver, owner and crew will be up to the task.
With a roll of the dice the pole sitter threw a 4 which inverted the top four positions putting Elliott on the front row, unfortunately on the outside of the front row.
With the wave of the green flag Elliott was off, but was immediately freight trained on the low side impeding him from getting to the lower coveted line on the track. It was a 100-lap race so no need to force any issues early, Elliott was content to ride in the fourth spot for the first 25 laps.
With many cautions coming out in the first half of the race it was impossible to get in any long runs. The Team Clean Monte Carlo likes long runs! Elliott worked with what he had and as we approached the 60-lap mark the team had fallen back to tenth position. At this point the team contemplated coming in to make some adjustments to get the car handling better on short jaunts. The down side to coming in is you have to go to the rear of the field upon re-entering the race and with as many as 15 cars still behind us it would have taken some miracles to work our way back up through the field. The team decided to stay out and weather the storm.
Finally our luck began to change. Several longer green flag runs helped Dave get back up into the top five (fifth) with 3 laps remaining. With a comfortable lead over sixth place it looked to be a cruise to the finish with a fifth place run. However with just a couple to go the yellow flew again which bunched the field for a two-lap shootout. Elliott was jumped on the start by the seventh place car and relegated one position on the final 2 laps. Elliott could have pushed the issue to get the spot back but was satisfied to leave Cordele with a sixth place finish and no damage to the car. It was imperative to keep the car inn good shape as we had just started the run em ragged portion of our season.
Team Clean will run three consecutive races over the next three weekends so repair, maintenance and set up time will be at a premium.
In addition to our sixth place finish the Teams consistency has moved them up to third in points.
We will be at South Georgia Motor Sports Park this Saturday the 22nd for the second leg of the run em ragged tour, we look forward to seeing you all there.
Thanks to the crew as always, we were short handed this past week but the men stepped up in the 85-degree plus heat to get the job done.
