Strong run by Salemi spoiled by late-race wreck at Stafford
Rochester, NH (6/17/06) BES driver John Salemi returned to Stafford Speedway on Friday night looking to change his luck at the half-mile Connecticut oval. While fighting poor handling cars in previous visits to Stafford, Salemi hoped his new team would fare better in 2006. With a strong top-10 run in the works, Salemi was caught up in a late-race incident in turns 1 and 2, which ended the night for the Nashua, NH driver.
John practiced the #15 Waste Management/BG Environmental/Daddy’s Hot Sauce/Dennis Ciotti Racing Chevrolet on Friday afternoon and was happy with the handling. “Last time down here, we struggled with the setup,” said John. “I thought that the track changed significantly once the sun went down.” Salemi made multiple runs, and some minor changes, in the ninety-minute practice session and was happy with the handling of the car going into the race.
Salemi was the third car out to qualify. “We picked up a lot of time from where we practiced, so we are going in the right direction in our qualifying. We still have some work to do, but we are making progress.” John qualified the #15 car in the 18th position and would start mid-pack when the green flag dropped. “Even though we qualified 18th, I have an excellent car for the race and a great shot at another top-10 finish.”
The plan for the race was to keep the nose clean and stay out of trouble. For the first 122 laps, Salemi was able to do just that. John quickly moved into the top-10 in the first 30 laps of the race and settled in behind the leaders. He was able to avoid a couple of close calls, including a turn one spin in front of him, by inches. “The car was handling well, I just wanted to stay out of trouble and be able to make a late race move to the front,” said John.
Unfortunately, Salemi was not able to avoid a huge mess in turn 2 on a late race restart. “We took the green, got down into one and cars went everywhere. The track was pretty much blocked, so I got down low to get slowed down. At the last second, another car came down in front of me and I hit him hard in the back.” The damage on the #15 car was enough to force John to retire from the event. “We hit hard enough to damage the radiator, so we couldn’t make it back out at all.” John recalls. “I hate it for Mark and all of our sponsors. Waste Management, BG Environmental, Daddy’s Hot Sauce and Dennis Ciotti Racing are all great to us and we like to run well for them. We had a great race going for most of the night, but things can change quickly out here. We’ll try again next week at Holland.”
The NASCAR Busch East Series returns to action this coming weekend at the Holland Speedway in Holland, NY. The Fuccillo Auto Parts Huge 150 Presented by Sunoco and Hanes Supply will take the green flag at 8pm on Saturday night June 24th. Sponsorship opportunities are available with the #15 team. For more info please visit the team website at http://www.johnsalemiracing.com or email marketing@johnsalemiracing.com
