John Salemi 22nd in Caution Filled New Hampshire 125
Rochester, NH (9/17/06) NASCAR Busch East Series driver John Salemi returned to the New Hampshire International Speedway on Saturday hoping to have a strong run and help lock-in his spot in the Toyota All-Star Showdown in October. The New Hampshire 125 was an ugly race from the start, with 11 caution flags totaling 73 laps. With the lack of green flag racing, John was forced to salvage what he could and brought the #15 Waste Management/BG Environmental/Dennis Ciotti Racing Products Chevrolet home in the 22nd position after the call was made to shorten the race by 21 laps.
With qualifying being rained out on Thursday afternoon, the field was set by current points. Starting from the 13th position, Salemi got very few green flag laps to gain any positions on the track. “It was really ugly out there,” said John. “Every two or three laps, we’d have the yellow come out.” Salemi was able to stay out of trouble throughout the event, but lack of competitive laps hampered the race for many drivers.
“We stayed out of trouble and stuck with our game plan,” Salemi recalled. On lap 32, John brought the #15 car to the pits for fuel and right side tires. The planned pit stop would ensure that John had enough fuel to be able to finish the race. “The only problem was that the large number of yellow flag laps really changed pit strategy for everyone. We had no way of anticipating that many yellows today. We always plan on having some, but no where near that many laps.”
John returned to the race deeper in the pack to let the pit strategy cycle around back to him, only to ride around for almost fifty more laps under caution. “It started to become clear to all of us that many cars were going to try and finish without pitting. The caution laps allowed for a number of cars to conserve fuel and it was just enough to make it to the end.”
To make matters worse for Salemi, NASCAR made the call to shorten the race due to time constraints. “The call to shorten the race really hurt us. We gave up so much track position by coming in to pit. We managed to get by a few cars late in the race, but ended up 22nd. If we had known the race was going to be shortened, we would have stayed out.”
We are pretty disappointed with that because we had a car capable of finishing the top 10. It’s a bad break for our team. We are fighting hard to earn that Showdown spot and need to finish well in the next few races. To have a strong run taken away like this is tough. We’ll go to Dover next week and hopefully have some racing.”
The NASCAR Busch East Series hits the track next at the Dover Speedway in Dover, DE on Friday September 22. The Dover 150 will take the green flag at 4:15pm for the longest race of the Busch East season. Sponsorship opportunities are available with the #15 team. For more info, visit the team website at http://www.johnsalemiracing.com or email marketing@johnsalemiracing.com
