American Commercial Lines 200 Race Report

OVERVIEW

posted on March 07, 2008

HAMPTON, Georgia (March 7, 2008) – The No. 15 Silverado finished 23rd in the American Commercial Lines 200 after the Ergon team struggled to find the handling on Marc Mitchell’s truck.

Mitchell was forced to start at the rear-end of the field following an accident in practice. The Ergon Chevy ran through some moisture on the track and spun into the outside retaining wall. The damage forced the No. 15 team to roll out the backup truck for qualifying. Mitchell turned a qualifying lap good enough for 29th-place, however, he started from the 31st-position because the team switched to a another machine.

When the race got underway, Mitchell’s truck was too free for his liking. The team did their best to remedy the situation on their first pit stop. They gave Mitchell four fresh tires, fuel and lowered the track bar three rounds. Following the service, Mitchell rejoined 20th-place.

Mitchell hung strong in the top-20 until lap 93, when he entered pit lane for a green flag stop. The team topped off his fuel cell and changed his tires. Mitchell’s truck was still too loose, so the crew made a round of wedge and air pressure adjustments to tighten up the Ergon Silverado. Mitchell held down 20th-place once the field cycled through the pit stops.

Rain showers put a halt to the action on lap 110. A series of showers brought the caution flag out twice during the final 30 laps. On the final restart, several cars ahead of Mitchell bottlenecked on the speedway and forced him to check up. Four cars were able to capitalize on the incident and slip past Mitchell, leaving him with a 23rd-place finish.

“This was a great truck the Ergon team prepared for me,” said Mitchell after the event. “I made a rookie mistake in practice and it forced us to use a backup truck for the race. Unfortunately we didn’t have any time to fine tune its handling or feel it out before the event. The first laps I drove in it were for qualifying. It was too loose at the start of the race, but after a few adjustments, it was almost perfect. If we had been able to start the race with the truck like that, we would have finished in the top-10. It felt that good. Hopefully we can pick up where we left off when we go to Kansas.”