Marc Mitchell Power Stroke Diesel 200 at ORP Preview

OVERVIEW

posted on July 21, 2008

• The Power Stroke Diesel 200 will be Marc Mitchell’s first time competing at O’Reilly Raceway Park.
• A special decal will adorn the #15 truck this weekend. Seventeen year-old Chris Jackson, a friend of truck chief J.R. Norris, was recently paralyzed in an accident. The decal reads “Chris Jackson, In Our Prayers” as a reminder that he is on the hearts of everyone on the Ergon race team.
• The #15 Ergon team’s ninth-place finish in last week’s Built Ford Tough 225 at Kentucky Speedway was the team’s first top-10 of the season.
• Mitchell averages a 16.5 start and a 28.5 finish on short tracks in Craftsman Truck Series competition this season.
• Prior to the Power Stroke Diesel 200, Mitchell’s best NCTS finish on a short track was 26th (Mansfield Motorsports Park, 2008).
• The Ergon team is taking chassis #14 to ORP. #14 was most recently used at Milwaukee, where Mitchell qualified 9th and finished 15th.
• The #15 Ergon Hyprene Chevrolet will compete in 21 races in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in 2008. Mitchell is competing for Rookie of The Year Honors.

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Raybestos Rookie Contender Marc Mitchell Comments on the Power Stroke Diesel 200:
“Last week’s finish gave us a lot of momentum going into ORP. It started out bad, but the Ergon team rallied and we ended on a great note. I’m really proud of what we accomplished and that we never gave up. I feel like we got the monkey off our back and now we can keep on rolling.
“With the potential this team has, I expected that we would have finished in the top-10 a few more times by now. We had some bad racing luck a couple of times, but we’ve definitely been a top-10 team. We’ve always known that we could get the job done; we just have the results now.
“I’ve never been to ORP, but it looks like it’s going to be a fun track to race at. It reminds me a little bit of Richmond (International Raceway). It’s mostly flat, a little over a half-mile and we race under the lights. It really has the best of both worlds – it has the close, action packed racing of a short track, and has the quickness of a speedway. The fans are in for a treat.
“This is going to be a one-day show. We’ll practice, qualify and race all in the same day. That’s a lot of racing for one afternoon, but I really like that format. At the tracks I’ve never been to, it helps level the playing field against the guys who have raced there for years. When you have to come back on a second day and qualify, you only get one lap to get a feel for the track. That’s a big advantage if you already have a ton of laps there. One-day shows seem to make things more consistent.”