DOVER, Del. — The first trip to the Monster Mile did not start off the way that BNS rookie John Salemi would have liked, but the finish turned out to be a well fought 15th for the #63 Pontiac. After battling early handling problems with the car, Salemi found himself 3 laps behind the leader at the midpoint of the race. John and the team did not give up and made up two of the laps to finish in 15th position. It was a hard-earned finish for the entire team and was a great day in the overall points standings.
Salemi spent much of the first practice session on Thursday afternoon learning the track. "This place is so fast that I really wanted to get comfortable out there before we started working on the car too much." John recalls. "We made about 45 laps in practice and I felt great out there. Right as the first session ended, something with my radio broke and I couldn’t hear anyone." John and the team quickly began to search for the problem. With a short break in between sessions, the repair time began to cut into the second practice session. With a new radio in place, John was ready to head back onto the track for some final adjustments before qualifying. That plan quickly changed, as John had more radio issues. The entire radio harness was then replaced, but the second practice session was lost and Salemi was forced to qualify with what he had.
During qualifying, the car tightened up and John was unable to keep the car on the bottom of the track. Salemi took home the 26th fastest time, and was forced to take a provisional and the 28th starting position. "We caught some bad luck with the radio problem. If we had a chance to make some adjustments before qualifying, we could have started a lot better than we did." Now faced with a car that was extremely too tight for the race, the crew was forced to make changes. Without being able to practice before the green flag, John wasn’t sure what the car was going to feel like. "We knew what we had wasn’t going to work, so we did what we thought was best."
In the opening laps of the race, Salemi quickly radioed to the crew that he was now too loose and would need an adjustment at the first yellow flag. "I did everything I could just to hang onto the car. I almost wrecked a few times out there." John fell 3 laps behind the leader before he was able to get to pit road and correct the problem.
Over the course of the next 60 laps, Salemi pitted three times for adjustments. "We just kept working on it throughout the race. It would tighten up after each change, but then got really loose as we burned the fuel off," John said. Once the handling situation was manageable for the Nashua, NH driver, he came to pit road two more times for a full tank of fuel and four new tires to get him to the finish.
"We got the car to where I could drive it for the last half of the race. It was still a little loose, but I could manage it." John raced his way into the lucky dog position on the track and was able to benefit from the rule twice. In the final laps, he was able to race for position and make a strong run to the checkered flag. When the long day was over, John drove the #63 car to a well-earned 15th place. Once again, Salemi was able to stay out of trouble on the track and be there at the end when it counts.
"I am proud of the entire team today. We started the race with a hand-full and didn’t give up on it. My crew chief Gary Faw made great calls with the adjustments and we had solid pit stops all race. Everyone worked hard and we battled back from three laps down to a top 15 finish. This race will go a long way in our final points standings in a couple of weeks."
The NASCAR Busch North Series is back in action this coming Saturday afternoon at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, CT. The Burnham Hydronics 150 presented by Mohegan Sun is set to take the green flag at 1:15pm Saturday. Sponsorships are available with John Salemi Racing. For more information, please visit the team website at http://www.johnsalemiracing.com or email marketing@johnsalemiracing.com.
